Of Endurance
by Quantum Leek
Summary: The weight of the crown on his brow and the Ring of the Lucii on his hand would have been enough without the death of his beloved queen preying on his mind and two infants to raise on his own. The story of King Regis Lucis Caelum: his life, his burden, and his family. Featuring dad!Regis, a twin sister for Noct, and bromance. [Rated M for dark themes] [Part 1 in Onus series]
1. Of Life and Death

Art: hisapyon (tumblr)

Related Fics:

 _Fractured (Shattered Dreams I)  
Remnants (Shattered Dreams II)_

Author's Note: Most of this fic is fairly light and fluffy; _most_ chapters could easily have T or below rating, however, the fic does also deal with some from very dark themes, namely death, mental illness, self-harm, and suicide. For suspense and spoiler type reasons, I **_will not_** be tagging the top of each chapter with warnings. So consider this an umbrella warning for the fic. If you're concerned about any of these triggers but still want to read the story, feel free to PM me for more specific information.

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 **Part I | Rise and Fall**

It should have been raining.

Clouds were so often a ubiquitous part of life in Insomnia; grey skies rolling above the grey skyline. Usually it was raining when it ought to have been sunny and cheerful.

Today the sun was out, warm and bright, mocking him. It was too late in autumn for weather like that; mockery was the only possible reason.

Maybe if it had been raining someone would have dragged him back up to the Citadel, by that time. It was hard to say just how long he had been standing there, staring at the newly-engraved name. His feet were numb but his legs were full of lead. He couldn't turn away, couldn't take a step forward or back. And he couldn't shed a tear. Not now, when dozens—if not hundreds—of eyes followed his every move even when he made none.

If it was raining someone might have come; there would have been an excuse to send an attendant to steer him back inside on the pretense of getting him out of the cold mausoleum. But it wasn't wet or cold. It was bright and insultingly hot for November. And so all his staff remained just out of earshot, exchanging uneasy looks and wondering if it wouldn't be better to bring the king inside, but none of them were willing to take that first step and risk the repercussions.

In the end it took someone who wasn't afraid of getting yelled at or of shouting in return.

"Regis."

He blinked and the block lettering on the metal plaque came back into focus. He wished it hadn't.

 _Aulea Caelum_

 _Beloved Queen_

 _706 - 735_

Too young. _Gods damn_ , she was _too young_.

" _Regis._ "

He was only able to look away because his view was interrupted when someone stepped in front of him. Firm hands grasped his shoulders and he lifted his eyes to find a familiar face.

Clarus.

There weren't any words in his head, so he just stared at his friend, mute. Clarus' face was the first thing he had really _looked at_ besides those terrible letters since… he didn't know how long. The light was orange, somehow. He looked around, feeling as if he had just surfaced from a dark dream to find his nightmare a reality. Through the open windows he could see the sky turning shades of gold and red. Hadn't it been morning when they buried her?

"Come on. We are going back."

Clarus didn't ask if he wanted to go; in all likelihood it was better that way. Regis wasn't sure what he would have said. How could he ever want to leave? But if he didn't stop fixating on those letters, they would be all he could see—all he ever saw again. He would go mad.

And there was no space in his life for losing his mind.

He didn't respond, but Clarus took his silence for assent; he turned the king around and, with one arm thrown across the younger man's shoulders, guided him back toward the Citadel.

It was a numb walk, through a black fog and facilitated only by automatic motions. When he was sitting down in his study, he couldn't remember how he had gotten there.

" _Regis_."

Clarus' face was hanging in front of him once more. Had he been speaking? Regis couldn't recall; distantly he registered having heard his friend's voice, but no words presented themselves in his memory. There was a short glass of amber liquid in his hand, put there—no doubt—by Clarus.

"Mourn her. But do it sensibly; you cannot afford to lose yourself." Clarus straightened, his voice just sharp enough to cut through the fog. "Now drink. You need it."

Regis looked down at the glass in his hand, lifting it and considering for a moment. Then he drained it in one mouthful, wincing as it hit the back of his throat like molten fire. When he could breathe again he did so with relief, setting the empty glass down on the end table beside his chair.

It _did_ help. At least enough that words started filtering through his brain, again, thoughts put in enough order to be spoken.

"I know, Clarus," Regis rasped, his voice hoarse from disuse and burning alcohol. He ran his hands over his face and smoothed his hair back. "I just keep chasing myself around and circles and returning to this: I shall never be able to do it without her."

He folded his hands in front of him, his eyes fixing on the black gemmed ring that he wore. Clarus, sensing he wasn't through, took a seat in the armchair across from him and remained silent.

"She kept me sane, you know, these last six years. Even before we were married. I may go mad without…" he didn't look at Clarus. In fact, he wasn't looking at anything at all, though his eyes were open, fixed blindly on his hands. "And our children—Noctis and Reina—that they should grow up without a mother, without having ever known her…."

He did look up, then, and Clarus met his gaze steadily.

"I cannot raise them. Not without her. Even if I knew the slightest thing about parenting, I have not the time. What am I to do? What makes a good father? And how are they to grow and learn—who will care for them—without a mother?"

"All you need do—the most important thing and the only thing no one else can do for you—is love them. For their care they will have a caretaker. For their education a governess. Many children have grown into competent adults with only one—or even no parents." Clarus spoke evenly, with self-assurance. It was the solidness that Regis needed to hear.

"Love them…" he repeated.

"Yes."

Could he love anything, ever again? It felt like every part of him that had ever held a happy thought or felt a happy feeling was missing. Could he even love his own children, anymore?

There was a knock at the door. Clarus rose to deal with whoever was on the other side. But instead of sending them away after brief discussion, as Regis had expected, he opened it wide and admitted them after a glance.

Regis looked up and beheld more familiar faces: Cor and Weskham entered, both with an infant in their arms.

"You give him Reina; I don't trust you holding a baby," Weskham said, his rolling voice turning the suggestion into a joke.

Cor didn't even spare the steward a glance, but he _did_ push Reina into Regis' arms—in spite of the king's half-formed protests. Regis' eyes dropped to his daughter, who was fast asleep and only stirred briefly at the change of position.

The twins were just barely three months. Their eyes were still that deep, colorless blue with no hint of what true color would show through. Their hair was fine and sparse, their faces still round and indistinguishable. Regis brushed one finger over her soft cheek; his hand dwarfed her whole body. She was so tiny, so fragile—it was difficult to believe something so small could grow into whole person… or that something so beautiful had been born of his love for his queen.

His vision blurred with tears, unshed, but for the first time in days he smiled.

"Sweet Reina," he murmured to the sleeping baby, cradling her close, "You shall grow to look just like your mother."

He would love them. He _did_ love them. How could he not? Each of his twins was a tiny piece of Aulea, left behind for him to nourish and care for. He would love them more than his own life.


	2. A King's Place

If anyone thought it was improper that the king never made it back to his rooms that night, they didn't speak of it. Then again, no one else was around to see much. The king's three closest friends, two babies, and a couple bottles of strong whiskey were the only people to go inside his study, that night. None ever came out—at least not until past dawn—and the crownsguard who stood outside for the duration overheard varying levels of conversation and good-natured arguments, occasionally punctuated by crying babies, for the whole night.

Had they looked in around dawn, they would have found all six asleep in various states of disorder: King Regis sprawled across the lounge with one foot on the floor and one of the twins asleep on his chest; Master Amicitia sitting in one arm chair with his feet on the coffee table, his chin on his chest, and the other babe in his arms; The Marshal stretched across the arms of the other chair, one hand dangling with his knuckles brushing the floor, and his mouth hanging open; and Weskham, having apparently lost the fight for furniture, lying in an uncharacteristically undignified pose: spread-eagle underneath the coffee table with the empty bottles.

But no one looked in on them. Not then, in any case. Not until after the first baby woke the second with his cries and put an end to what little sleep the king and his retinue managed that morning.

It was certifiably impossible to sleep with two babies crying.

Regis groaned; he had drunk enough alcohol for a headache, but not enough to drown out the memories. It was just as well, given that drunkenly caring for two infants was inarguably a bad idea.

He patted his daughter's back groggily, holding her against his chest as he sat up. By the time he was on his feet, he was surprisingly well awake. Whatever it was about crying that demanded attention, apparently, also commanded wakefulness.

"Reina; hush, sweet Reina," he cooed, rocking her in his arms until cries subsided into sporadic fussing. He looked over his shoulder, scanning the room. There had been bottles of a baby-friendly sort last night, as well, but they were all empty, now. "Wes—"

"On my way, Sire," Weskham said, neither looking nor sounding much worse for having slept under the coffee table. He was already on his feet, straightening his coat as he moved to the door.

Clarus had marginally more trouble subduing Noctis, but by the time Cor returned with two servants bearing bottles of milk, both babies had stopped outright crying and were merely making their discomfort known with the occasional grumble. Clarus passed Noct off to the first nursemaid while the second approached Regis.

"Your Majesty," she curtsied, but Regis didn't give her Reina. Instead he held out his hand for the bottle. Perhaps he didn't know anything about raising children, but this was one thing he was capable of doing. If he was going to be a good father, he was going to do everything he could do for them—even if that was often not enough. Love, by itself, didn't mean much. Not at three months. It was what he did with it.

The nursemaid looked surprised, but handed the bottle over without complaint. Little Reina latched onto it, drinking with gusto, her hands—barely big enough to clutch one of his fingers—closed pointlessly a few times before finding the bottle. Tiny feet kicked from beneath her blanket, perhaps expressing her approval, perhaps expressing her annoyance at having to wait so long. Either way, Regis smiled down at her and she looked back up at him, big blue eyes fixing on his face, leaving no doubt as to where she was looking. It was so easy to be lost in those eyes, so deep he could fall straight in and forget about everything else.

"There we are," he said, brushing one finger over her tiny hand and forearm, "This is what you wanted, after all; that wait was not so unbearable, was it?"

She blinked but didn't look away. A miniscule crease formed on her smooth brow: such a considerable expression of concentration on such a young face!

What would her first word be, he wondered. And Noctis? When would they take their first steps? What sort of people would they grow into? What sort of hopes and dreams would they have? He wanted to know it all, but he wasn't in a hurry; it was like reading a very long book, but every page was a delight and there was no reason to rush for the end.

"King Regis."

"Hmm..?" He didn't look up—the eye contact was like a silent conversation and he couldn't think of any way to explain to a three-month-old that he had interrupted their conversation to begin one with someone else.

"Sire, the council is convening to discuss the trouble with Phoenix Incorporated—rioting continues, today, and this morning alone, three new fires have broken out in the outer city," Weskham said, his tone noting a certain reluctance to interrupt, though he did his duty all the same.

It was news Regis couldn't ignore: not for his children, nor in mourning for his queen. He needed to be king, which meant he needed to leave his twins in the hands of others. Phoenix Incorporated—which, for some reason still unknown to him, had decided that hazardous waste disposal laws didn't apply to one of the largest companies in the Crown City and had been dumping dangerous run-off in the outer city, which had, in turn, cause hundreds, if not thousands, to fall sick and subsequently shake the city with protests that were, at their heart, well-motivated but rapidly devolved to violence and mayhem.

"Very well," Regis sighed. Regretfully, he turned his eyes away from his daughter's, finding the maid who stood nearby and passing her over. He kissed Reina's forehead, then Noctis' and followed Weskham out, picking up his coat on the way. "Clarus."

"They are in the audience chamber, Sire," Weskham said as Clarus joined them in the hall.

Regis said nothing. He wasn't dressed for court but there was little to be done about that, now. In fact, he was still wearing the same suit he had worn to Aulea's funeral and, subsequently, slept in. It was more than a little bit wrinkled, but he would just have to make do.

Together, the three of them crossed the Citadel to the audience chamber. The hallways were largely empty and the silence was broken only by the sound of three sets of shoes on black marble floors and the occasional murmured greeting as they passed a servant. On the ground floor, they stopped outside of the audience chamber.

"Sire—" Weskham stepped in front of him and tugged his vest straight. The king waited without objection as his steward brushed off his shoulders, re-knotted his tie, buttoned his coat, and then procured a comb to run through Regis' hair. Regis might have saved him the trouble; he suspected that no amount of fussing was going to make him look less like death warmed over, but he also knew that no amount of telling Weskham that would stop the relentless pull of his comb.

Once Weskham deemed his appearance suitable or, at the very least, as good as it was likely to get, he gestured toward the doors and the two crownsguards standing there opened the way into the audience chamber.

The doors were tall enough that a rider sitting astride a chocobo could have passed through unimpeded and then some. Beyond, a black river of gleaming tile flowed straight up to a sweeping staircase, which split in two, twisted, and reconvened, culminating in a throne of red and gold. Behind the throne, a sculpture of gold depicted the Lucian royals twining with the Astrals: a permanent reminder of the Gods' blessing on the royal bloodline.

Regis squared his shoulders. His head felt heavy and muddled, but he kept Clarus' words in his mind: mourn her sensibly. There was no space for him to lose sight of his duty; too much was riding on his shoulders. He took the first step into the audience chamber and Clarus fell in beside him; they left Weskham outside as they advanced to the king's throne together. At the top of the stairs, Clarus separated to join the council off to one side.

"Your Majesty." The attendant at the door across the room called his attention nearly before the king was at his throne. "Bastien Kurick begs grace for tardiness and sends word of his overburdened schedule."

Bastien Kurick was chief executive officer of Phoenix Incorporated and, given the mess his company had made of the outer city, he had been summoned before king and council for that morning. That he complained of too much on his schedule wasn't surprising, given that he was likely trying to sort out how to mop up his mess while burdening everyone else before his own people, but it was flippant to send that as an excuse.

"He intends to buy himself more time," Master Hamon Carina, one of Regis' councillors, spoke up, with a healthy dose of indignance.

It was a distinct possibility. There were others, of course, which the rest of the council was quick to note.

"Or he hopes to exert some control over matters here," Kelmis Eridanus observed.

"Very likely some mixture thereof," Clarus said.

Regis didn't immediately pass any sort of judgement. He turned and sat down deliberately on his throne, settling himself neatly with his hands on the arms while all eyes fixed on him. This was the moment when, under normal circumstances, he would have made some declaration, given some instructions, and seen that progress was made on his behalf. It should have been simple. It wasn't always simple, but there was no particular reason why this should not be: a noncompliant subject making a show of force against king and council was a straightforward problem. So why was his mind refusing to work?

Aulea…

He should have been looking at the court, making a decision. Instead his eyes glazed and her face appeared in his mind, blocking out everything else.

"Your Majesty?"

Clarus' voice broke through. The image of his queen's face shattered and his eyes refocused on his court. He kicked himself mentally, pushing his brain to focus on the task at hand. A show of force deserved a show of force in return, did it not? A threat in return, an insistence that Kurick show himself, or else…. Or was that too harsh? Had his sense of empathy and mercy fled with the death of his wife?

"Perhaps it is possible to give Kurick what he wants without appearing weak," Clarus suggested. "We grant him one day further, but tomorrow we send the Crownsguard to ensure he arrives on time."

Regis' brain felt too fuzzy to tell whether or not Clarus' suggestion was a reasonable one. Did it even matter? He trusted his friend and advisor, in any case; he trusted Clarus' judgement even if he didn't trust his own.

The king gave a short nod and the attendant at the door took Clarus' words and left the hall. Regis shifted in his chair, feeling a rising sensation of panic. Was this how his mind was going to operate, from now on? How was he supposed to keep to his duty if he couldn't even make a simple decision regarding the treatment of Bastien Kurick? He knew he needed to keep his focus, to keep working in spite of how much he hurt inside. But if felt like grasping at mist in the black of night.

"Your Majesty: Lieutenant Ackers with a report from the outer city."

Regis looked up again as another attendant took the place of the first. It took him a moment to process the words and a moment longer to remember why he had been called to court in the first place. Riots and fires set in the outer city. He lifted his hand to indicate that the crownsguard should be admitted.

Dustin Ackers was a promising sub-officer of Regis' own age or thereabouts. While there were certainly far too many crownsguards for the king to keep track of, let alone remember names or ranks of, Lieutenant Ackers had been coming up in reports from Clarus with increasing frequency as of late. By now, Regis knew him by name and face. He would have liked to know more of those who served him on such a basis but even with an extraordinary memory for people, it was simply impossible. There were thousands in the Crownsguard.

"Your Majesty." The lieutenant stopped at the base of the stairs leading up to Regis' throne and bowed. "Yesterday's fires have been extinguished, but three new ones have broken out this morning."

Had there been fires, yesterday? Regis couldn't recall. What had happened, yesterday?

Before he could stop himself, Regis' mind conjured up images of the mausoleum where he had stood all day, staring at the freshly engraved plaque bearing Aulea's name: the distant smell of flowers, the stark beams of light cutting through the dark of the immaculate stone chamber. If the outer city had been burning the day before, no one had come to tell him. Probably because they suspected he wouldn't have heard anything that was said to him...

Much as he hadn't heard anything Lieutenant Ackers had said.

Regis blinked and forced his brain to focus on the words.

"…danger of explosion if the flames reach the Phoenix warehouse," Dustin concluded.

His heart skipped a beat or two, then added a few extra in between to make up for the lost time. Why would the warehouse explode? Were the rioters nearby? Presumably the lieutenant had answered both of those questions, but Regis hadn't been listening.

He moved his hands, sticky with sweat, to the arms of his throne. This was one of those times when a quick decision was not only appropriate, but dire. There were lives at stake. Probably. Presumably there were people in the region. Hellfire. Why hadn't he been listening?

Clarus was looking at him. Indeed, everyone was looking at him, waiting for the decision that he didn't know how to make. Eventually the King's Shield turned his eyes back to the crownsguard standing before the throne.

"At the current rate, how long before the flames potentially reach the warehouse?" Clarus asked.

"If unimpeded, perhaps two hours, sir. The firefighters expect to be able to stretch that, but if the winds change it won't be much longer."

"And you estimate there are a few thousand in the blast radius?" Clarus pressed for repeated details and Regis realized what he was doing.

Thank you, Clarus! He could have kissed him.

"Yes, sir."

"Evacuate the region," Regis said. That, at least, he could decide upon. There were lives in danger and they needed to be relocated. "If there is enough time, evacuate a buffer, as well. Take no chances with their safety."

"We will need more men, Sire," Lieutenant Ackers said. "Some of those streets are filled with protesters, still."

His response ought to have been immediate, but for some reason, even as he reached for the words to tell the crownsguard that he could have whatever reinforcements were needed, Regis second guessed himself. How many did they need? How many were there to spare? He felt as if he had been out of place for months rather than just a day and now he had no idea where their resources were spread.

Clarus filled the moment of hesitation. "Take them. Marshal Leonis will give you the reinforcements that you require," he said, smoothing over the out of place pause left by the king.

"Very good, sir." Lieutenant Ackers bowed and left.

Regis stopped himself from giving Clarus a grateful look. As much as he wanted to offer his thanks to his friend for always being exactly where he was needed, Regis couldn't bring himself to admit how badly he was struggling.

It didn't improve, from there.

Regis would have been hard pressed to recount precisely what did occur, following the dispatch of Lieutenant Ackers. There was some discussion, he vaguely recalled, of mounting a cleanup effort to remove contaminants dumped by Phoenix and some trouble with rioters in the area, but he couldn't recall what conclusion was reached. It certainly wasn't a decision made by him, because every time he tried to think of anything, the only thing at all in his brain was Aulea.

Eventually Clarus called an end to things under the pretense of breaking for lunch, and they left together. Weskham caught up with them outside and fell into step beside him. Regis didn't see the look that his steward and his Shield exchanged behind his back and he wouldn't have registered its meaning even if he had. His mind was muddled. Everything was mixed up with Aulea and everything that had to do with Aulea was pain, but in between that there was budding self-loathing. Why couldn't he do anything, anymore?

"Your Majesty—Regis."

He stopped walking and turned to look at Weskham, who was standing in the doorway that led to the dining hall.

Ah, yes. We stopped for lunch. Regis noted distantly. Where had he been walking? Back to his study, perhaps; he hadn't really registered where his feet were taking him. Now that he did think about it, food sounded terrible. It wasn't that he wasn't hungry—a rumbling ache in his stomach told him he was—but any image of food that his mind conjured up turned the rumbling into a rolling.

He shook his head and continued down the hall, consciously steering toward his study, this time. "I do not wish to be waited on," he said, which was half true. How long would it take before the word of what had happened in court that morning spread through the whole Citadel? How long before his whole household and the entire Crownsguard was murmuring about how the king was cracking under the pressure of his wife's death?

Neither Clarus nor Weskham made any objection. They followed him back to his office; Weskham delayed outside for a moment to speak with an attendant before joining them and shutting the doors behind him.

Regis dropped into the high-backed chair behind his desk and buried his face in his hands. He didn't feel like shedding tears. In fact, he didn't know what he felt like doing. Being better, he supposed.

"Regis…" He heard Clarus approach, but he didn't look up.

"I know, Clarus," he sighed. "I need to do better."

Clarus didn't respond. No one responded and Regis didn't move.

He had no time to fall apart. His city was burning, his people were looking to him for guidance, and he was falling apart. He had never wanted so badly to give up, before… but he couldn't. What did giving up even mean, for him? The king didn't set down his burdens unless he was dead.

"I am trying," Regis said, half to himself.

Clarus' hand settled on his shoulder, a wordless expression of support and faith. That was Clarus: he had always believed the best of him and, through most, if not all, of their lives, he had been proven right. There had always been responsibilities, always expectations on Regis' shoulders. He had grown up knowing that one day the crown would be his, that one day he would wear the Ring of the Lucii and shoulder the weight of the Wall and that no one but himself would be able to carry those burdens. But he had never expected to carry them alone.

Aulea.

How could one person, without ever holding his mantle, make that weight so much lighter in life and so much heavier in death?

There was a knock at the door. He knew without looking that the footsteps he heard going to answer it were Weskham's, because Clarus didn't move from his side, though his hand did fall from Regis' shoulder. After a moment, Weskham returned and set something on Regis' desk in front of him. He looked up to find a tray of food.

Regis sat back in his chair, his mouth twisting as he shook his head. How could he stomach that food? Doubtless it was all masterfully prepared, but he couldn't imagine a single thing to eat that sounded worth the effort.

"You need to eat, Regis," Clarus said. "You've already skipped breakfast."

"If I might be so bold, Sire: you did not have more than a bite to eat all day, yesterday, either," Weskham observed.

Hadn't he? Regis couldn't recall. It seemed so far away and so insignificant. What did it matter if he ate or not?

"You need to keep your strength up, Regis," Clarus pressed.

That much, at least, he knew. Without strength he couldn't hope to keep up his duties, not that he was doing an admirable job of it, so far.

"Very well," Regis said, making an effort of picking up his fork.

He sifted through the bowl of stew, aware that both his companions were watching him closely. After stalling a few moments longer, trying to decide whether carrots or meat sounded less unappetizing, he settled on the former and took a bite.

It tasted of nothing.

Or, more accurately, it tasted just like a carrot, if that carrot had been sculpted of ash. He might have spit it out if Clarus wasn't standing over his shoulder and if he hadn't recognized the importance of eating food in the long run.

The meat turned out to be worse, still. At least the carrots were soft enough that he hardly had to chew them, but the meat, though tender, required him to come face to face with the fact that taste just wasn't something his mouth wanted to do for a prolonged period. After that he picked his bread to pieces and only ate a bit of it, leaving the rest in tatters on his tray. When he stopped pretending to eat, neither Clarus nor Weskham made any objection. Perhaps they were just satisfied that he had made some attempt.

"If you would like to get some rest, Regis," Clarus ventured, hesitant. "I could handle the court in your absence."

Regis looked up at him. "Is my inefficacy so acute that you believe the kingdom would run more smoothly in my absence?" He asked, his tone quiet and bitter rather than accusatory. It was probably true, but this was the first that any of them had mentioned his uncharacteristic inability to make even the simplest decision.

The moment's hesitation that preceded Clarus' response was enough of an answer.

"Sire, none of us had a particularly sound nor lengthy sleep, last night," Weskham said. "And you have more pressure to contend with that the rest. If you required some time, none would deny you that."

Regis shook his head. "No. I must continue. A king pushes onward always, never looking back. Is that not so?"

Weskham bowed his head in deference. Clarus' mouth tightened, but he made no objection.

"I will make it through," Regis said. "But if you see me falter, Clarus, do not hesitate to take initiative. The kingdom comes before my pride."

"As you say, Your Majesty," Clarus said.

Before the day was done, the King's Shield would have ample opportunity to make good on his word.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave Questions/Comments/Criticisms in the review box below.


	3. Everything and Nothing

Regis had thought sitting in court, reaching for words that had once come so easily to him and struggling to focus on just one simple thing in the present was trying, but it was nothing to what awaited him at the end of the day.

He halted outside the doors to his chamber, just far enough away that the crownsguard outside, who had placed her hand on the doorknob in anticipation of opening it for the king, hesitated. The last time he had been inside, Aulea had been in there with him. Though he knew without a doubt that she wasn't waiting for him beyond those doors, he couldn't help the flicker of hope he felt: subconscious, an automatic feeling of relief like he always felt when retiring to his rooms after a long day. Aulea would be there. She would ease his burdens and soothe his worries.

Except she wouldn't. Not that night, nor ever again.

"Your Majesty?"

Clarus was at his elbow, wondering why it was that they had stopped so suddenly. Regis spared him a sideways glance and picked himself up, standing a little straighter. He could do this. He would do this, no matter how it hurt. He would make it through because there was no other choice: not for him.

He closed the last of the distance down the hall and the doors opened for them. The king stepped inside with his faithful Shield ever at his side, steeling himself for what lay beyond.

I will prevail, he told himself.

The doors shut behind them. Inside, the room was just the same as ever: the walls were lined with the same black and gold paneling that covered the whole castle, the floor the same black marble tile. But it wasn't the walls or the floor that drew his attention; he hardly paid note to the signs that servants had been about, tidying up and setting a fire in the hearth. What his eyes settled on were the little details.

The sitting room attached to his bedroom was empty of people, save himself and Clarus, but all the indications that another had once been there were still present. There was the armchair she always sat in by the tall windows in the back, the woven blanket cast over it as if she had just stepped out for a moment and would return shortly. There was the table with a tiny hoop of needlepoint sitting on top, unfinished and destined never to be. There was the little stack of books on the coffee table, some of them marked part-way through; she had never gotten to discover the end of those stories. Her own had come too soon for that.

His feet took him through the room. With the merry fire and the city lights twinkling outside, it should have been warm and welcoming, but he found it cold and painfully empty. His fingers brushed the unfinished needlepoint—a basket of roses and an elegant black cat—before he turned away.

I cannot do this. Whatever brave lies he had told himself in the hall outside, the truth came crashing down on him, regardless.

He ground his teeth together and turned toward the window, his eyes shut. Behind him he could hear Clarus, just out of reach, waiting to see what he would do. Regis did precisely what he had done all day: nothing at all.

"What is the point, anymore, Clarus?" He asked bitterly, as he opened his eyes and looked out the window. "What is the use, if there is nothing but nothing from here until forever? Why shall I continue?"

Anyone else in the city might have paid a considerable sum to have views such as he did. Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows stretched throughout the sitting room and his adjacent bedroom. An endless view of Insomnia.

To him, it was a perpetual reminder of everything riding on his shoulders. Outside that window there were hundreds of thousands of people looking up at him, watching, waiting, expecting. Above them the Wall shimmered, a constant barrier shielding his people from the threats beyond, fueled by his strength alone. It pulled at him every second of every day, like a fish hook stuck in his soul and being tugged, tortuously slowly, for whatever remained of his life.

That would have been enough. All of those were things that he had known would fall on his shoulders eventually and, even if he had never relished the thought, he had been prepared to accept it. But that had been before, when Aulea still stood at his side: a breath of fresh air in a stuffy Citadel conference room, a cool whisper in the dark of night. How could he do it without her? How could he do any of it?

"Regis…"

Clarus' hand fell on his shoulder. Regis shut his eyes, blocking out the view once more.

"I know," Regis sighed. "I continue because I must."

That was all there was to it, wasn't it? If he set down this burden there would be no one left to pick it up. Lucis would fall. The Crystal would be unprotected. His people would die.

"But I have tried. I have tried so hard and everything I used to be is just out of reach. So much of me died with her, Clarus. I thought I should be able to pick myself up and carry on as I always have done. Now I find it impossible." The glass of the window was cool against his forehead, Clarus' hand warm on his shoulder.

"I don't know that this is something you can rush," Clarus said.

"What choice have I?"

Clarus was quiet for long enough that Regis opened his eyes to look at him. His friend stood with pursed lips, looking reluctant to say anything in one direction or the other. Clarus knew as well as he did that there was no time for him to mope about. He didn't want to mope; he wanted to work, but even that seemed impossible.

"Let us return downstairs. I cannot bear to be in this place without her," Regis said, pushing away from the window and turning toward the door again.

They went, leaving the crownsguards outside looking mildly confused, and returned to the king's study. He dropped into one of the padded armchairs and cast about dejectedly for something to think of that didn't remind him of Aulea. In a few more minutes Weskham found them there; he entered, followed by servants bearing dinner, though Regis felt no more inclined to eat than he had been that afternoon.

Weskham offered him the tray and Regis considered refusing it. Ultimately he decided that was pointless; everyone in the room knew he didn't want to eat, but they—himself included—also knew he needed to. So he took the tray, dutiful as ever, and forced himself to start on the soup.

"Is that bottle still on the sideboard, Weskham?" Regis asked, glancing up at his steward.

"Yes, Sire."

He motioned wordlessly, indicating that he wanted it, and Weskham poured him a glass of amber liquid. He drained it in one mouthful and held it out for more, which he received. Weskham didn't object. Indeed, he didn't even look disapproving; his features were too well controlled for that, but Regis suspected he felt it, anyway.

"Regis—" Clarus didn't have the same inhibitions. "You shouldn't drink on an empty stomach."

Regis looked at the second glass, emptied it as well, and handed it back to Weskham. "I know," he said regretfully, as he returned to his soup.

"Is there anything else I can do, Sire?" Weskham inquired.

The way he said it gave Regis pause; it wasn't just the idle question posed by a faithful steward to his king—though Weskham was certainly that—it was an entreating, hopeful plea from a friend: could he do anything to make life less unbearable, even if only for a moment? It was that tone that made Regis actually stop and consider, rather than dismissing offhand that there was nothing likely to make him feel better. How had he gotten through the night before? With a liberal dose of alcohol and his three ever-faithful friends, primarily, but…

"My children—Weskham, would you… if they are not yet asleep…"

"I will see," Weskham said, leaving the room with a bow.

Regis returned to his ash-flavored soup. He didn't much feel like going back upstairs, but the only thing he could think of that didn't sound terrible was spending time with his children.

In the time that Weskham was gone, Clarus folded himself into the opposite armchair and Regis made some decent headway on his soup. He discovered it was considerably easier to eat if he didn't have to chew—it meant tasting a little less. By the time his steward had returned, Regis had eaten most of the soup and a portion of the bread, but he set aside the unfinished dinner when Weskham arrived with one child in his arms.

"Little Noctis was fast asleep, so her nursemaids send Reina to keep you company," Weskham provided as he handed off the baby.

"Reina," Regis took her eagerly, wrapping her up in his arms and holding her tight.

The little princess squirmed but didn't fuss; she let Regis hold onto her as he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. It was the closest he would ever get to being with Aulea ever again; it wasn't enough, but he would have to make do. This was their daughter: if there was one thing Aulea would have wanted for him after her death, it would have been that he care for their children.

A little voice in the back of his mind insisted this wasn't entirely true. Aulea would have wanted him to be happy, but that was impossible. He could only hope he wouldn't disappoint her too much in his failure on that point.

Reina gave one more hearty squirm, along with a monosyllabic sound. Regis resettled his grip on her, holding her out in front of him and letting her feet rest on his lap. They sat crooked, like she wasn't sure what feet were for, just yet, but her eyes fixed on his face almost immediately and he couldn't help but smile. It seemed an age since he had held her; had it really only been that morning when they had been together?

"Hello, my dear," he said. "It has been a long day… though perhaps not for you. Or perhaps every day is a long day when it takes up so much of your life. Did you have a lovely day, Little Princess?"

She watched him as he spoke, as if captivated by his face and the way it produced so many different sounds. Her arms gave swift, jerky little movement, up and down, with no purpose that he could see but to test her ability to move them intentionally. He smiled and then he watched as—for the first time that he had observed, at least—her alert, open-mouthed expression blossomed into a true smile.

It was the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing.

Regis' own smile deepend. "She is smiling at me—Clarus, look at this smile!"

For a moment he feared it wouldn't last long enough for Clarus to see, but his fears proved unfounded; the toothless smile persisted even as Clarus rose and came to stand beside him. Reina's eyes flicked toward the motion, but lingered only for a moment before she looked at Regis again.

"She is beautiful, Regis," Clarus said.

"She will grow to look just like her mother," Weskham commented, at Regis' right.

"Is that so, Little Princess?" Regis asked earnestly. Though he hardly dared admit it, even to himself, he hoped she would. It hardly mattered, one way or another, his more reasonable half said; she was beautiful now and she always would be, regardless of whether or not she looked like Aulea some day.

"Do you have any old pictures of Aulea as a child?" Clarus asked.

"Not this young, I think," Regis said, never taking his eyes off his daughter. She gave a great yawn and he found himself imitating her; babies, it seemed, made people do all sorts of strange things.

"What's the oldest, then? We must have been… six or seven when we started off together," Clarus mused.

"You may have been six or seven. I suspect she and I were three or four." Regis laid Reina down on her back in his lap, letting her grab hold of his thumbs when she reached for them. Her knees tucked up and her little feet kicked, but she held tight to his hands and watched everything that moved and some things that didn't. "There may be one or two that has survived all this way from then."

"And you didn't join us until… well… we must have been nearly teenagers, by then," Clarus said to Weskham.

"In the thick of school," Weskham said. "I was thirteen, His Majesty twelve, which makes you fifteen at the time, Clarus."

"There are certainly pictures at that age," Clarus said.

"Indeed. I have a few myself with a very young Her Majesty braiding my hair," Weskham said.

Regis managed a smile at that, still looking at his daughter rather than his friends. "I had forgotten she used to do that."

"He got so used to it he just resigned himself to it," Clarus said, reaching across the back of Regis' chair and flicking one of Weskham's braids.

"She had style," Weskham said simply, "Even at thirteen I recognized it."

"She also had a way of getting others to do as she liked," Regis told Reina as the little princess yawned once more.

"You'll not find any who disagree with that. She certainly had you wrapped around her finger," Clarus teased as he rested his arm along the back of Regis' armchair and leaned against it.

"Do not act as if you were immune," Regis said, pulling his eyes away from Reina at last and looking up at Clarus. "Since we are discussing photographs, I have a lovely one of you wearing a flower crown that Aulea made."

"You were wearing one, too!" Clarus retorted.

"Of course I was," Regis said. He dropped his gaze back to his daughter once more. "We have already well established that I always did whatever she liked."

"That, at least, will undoubtedly be the same for this little one," Weskham commented.

Reina's hold on his fingers had slipped—as had her hold on her eyelids. She gave one final yawn and they drooped shut altogether, only to jerk back open.

Regis didn't even deny the suggestion. He just smiled and resettled Reina's blankets around her, watching her eyes shut once more. "Everything your little heart desires, my dear; if it is in my power I will grant it," he murmured.

"And when she misbehaves?" Clarus inquired.

"All she need do is fix me with that endless, blue-eyed gaze and all will be forgiven," Regis said, though he knew it was still uncertain whether her eyes would turn out blue in the end. He hoped they would be; it was a hope wrapped in another hope: Aulea's eyes had been blue.

"And when she brings home her first boyfriend?" Clarus pressed.

Regis shot him a glare. Clarus was smiling.

"Why do you taunt me so? She will not even know what a boy is for many years, yet," the king scowled.

"Now Clarus, do be reasonable," Weskham said, settling one hand on Regis' shoulder. "The child will grow up to be her father's little girl and that is that."

"I thought we were maintaining she would grow to be just like Aulea, in which case I foresee a great deal of trouble in your future, my friend," Clarus teased.

"Ah, but you have forgotten something very important about Her Majesty," Weskham said.

"What is that?" Clarus asked.

"That she loved Regis more than anything. And for all her mischief and her sly, persuasive streak, she would never have intentionally caused him trouble."

Regis' smile, warm from watching his daughter fall asleep on his lap, grew bittersweet at Weskham's words. It was true, of course. Some people might have found it in themselves to feel angry with a lost spouse for leaving them behind, but Aulea had always hated whatever perceived inconvenience she caused him. If she could have said one thing to him now, he wouldn't have been surprised if it was I'm sorry.

The three of them were quiet for a time. The fourth sighed in her sleep.

Eventually, Clarus cleared his throat. "Well, it seems it will still be some years, yet, before we can dig up the old photographs and see if our predictions ring true. Until then, it might be wise to take the princess' advice and get some sleep. Regis?"

"I cannot move," Regis said without regret. "I have become a bed, and I have no intention of making any changes until she is through with me."

"Already at her beck and call," Weskham observed.

"But your family is waiting for you, Clarus. You must return to them," Regis said, looking up at his friend. Clarus, at least, had a wife to return home to, still. "Far be it from me to keep you."

Clarus hesitated a moment, looking at Weskham, rather than Regis. The former gave a short nod: an affirmation that he would remain and look after the king. Only after Clarus had this assurance did he excuse himself to go, bidding them goodnight and farewell.

"Will you sleep here, tonight, Sire?" Weskham asked.

"I expect so." He might have said he intended to stay for as long as Reina slept, but in truth he had no plans to return to his room in the foreseeable future.

Weskham lowered the lights so that the only source in the study was the dying fire in the hearth. He threw more wood on the fire and stirred it back to life, then gathered up the remnants of Regis' dinner to take outside.

"Weskahm—"

"Yes, Sire?"

Regis hesitated, looking at his daughter for a moment before casting his gaze to his friend. "It will never be the same, will it?"

Weskham's mouth tightened in regret. "No, Sire," he said.

"And I suppose I never will be, either," Regis said, dropping his gaze once more.

"No, Sire. I do not believe anything—or anyone—will be. She touched a great many lives and it would do her great injustice to pretend that her passing changes nothing."

Regis nodded, throat tight, but didn't respond. Eventually he heard the door close as Weskham left to return the tray to the kitchen.

He slept in his chair, that night. It wasn't the first time and and it wouldn't be the last time, but for one night, at least, he had the excuse of being used as an infant's bed.


	4. A Lesson in Care

Regis didn't sleep through until dawn because Reina didn't sleep through until dawn. Some parents might have been irked to be woken at four by a crying infant, but, then again, most parents weren't having a subpar night's sleep in an armchair in the first place.

The king rose, holding his daughter against his chest, and found that Weskham had fallen asleep on the lounge. His steward didn't sleep long through Reina's cries, however.

"A bottle, perhaps, Sire?" He suggested, pushing himself upright.

"Do not trouble yourself," Regis said, waving him back to sleep, "I will see to it."

He took the path upstairs the the nursery with Reina crying and fussing in parts, not feeling entirely certain that Weskham _would_ go back to sleep at all. Either way, he had no concrete plans to do so, himself. His sleep was haunted just as his waking hours were.

In the nursery he found one nursemaid sitting up while Noctis slept, still. The young woman leapt to her feet, performing a hasty curtsy as he entered.

"Your Majesty—!" She kept her voice quiet in spite of her clear surprise.

"Apologies," Regis said, lifting his hand to head off any further formality.

Reina made a sharp objection.

"Hush, my dear, you shall wake your brother," Regis told her. To the nursemaid he added. "She woke—I thought… perhaps she might be hungry?"

"Quite likely," she smiled and held out her hands for the fussing baby.

Regis hesitated. "I should like to feed her, myself."

Surprised flitted across her face once more. "Oh! I suppose there is a bottle in the fridge. I'll warm it up."

The nursery was actually a suite of rooms just down the hall from Regis' own room; it was large enough to eventually be converted into a bedroom for the twins to share and grow up in, but for the present it contained two cribs, a pair of armchairs, a small sofa, and an assortment of toys. The adjoining room had been transformed into a sort of kitchenette so that milk and—eventually—baby food could be stored on-site without needing to ring to kitchens.

It was to the kitchen that the nursemaid crossed, disappearing out of sight for a few moments while Regis tried to convince Reina to be patient. It wasn't an overwhelmingly successful endeavor, but eventually relief arrived in the form of a bottle of milk and the little princess told him in no uncertain terms that this was precisely what she wanted.

Regis settled into one of the armchairs, watching her drink from the bottle. She blinked overlarge blue eyes and looked up at him as he brushed tears from her cheeks. It was amazing how quickly they could go from bawling to utterly content; though her eyes were still rimmed in red and she sniffled as she drank, she seemed not to have any cares in the world, anymore. In another moment she had fallen into her recent habit of studying him and he fell straight into her endless gaze, smiling absentmindedly.

It was so much easier to forget the nighttime ghosts when he had a content child in his arms.

"My mother always said babies are the Gods' greatest gift to us: the purest things in Eos," the nurse said.

He had nearly forgotten she was there, but when she spoke he did look up at her, if only briefly, before his eyes settled back on his daughter.

"So they are…" Regis murmured. "Pure and untouched by the world. What they become… that depends upon us."

Reina kicked her little feet and grasped at the bottle, blinking up at him.

"Shh… hush, little princess," Regis crooned, brushing her silky-smooth cheek with one finger. Just one finger was all that would fit, about. She was so tiny, so precious.

Her kicking subsided and she settled once more. Regis smiled, pulling her blankets tighter around her.

"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but you're not at all like I expected."

"Is that so?"

He blinked and looked back to the nurse, actually looked at her, this time. She couldn't have been much older than eighteen, surely, with that naive round face and wide brown eyes. For all the innocence, though, there was something of practicality about her. She wore pants, rather than a skirt—jeans and a sweater with a tight row of buttons down the front—and her blonde hair was pulled back in a sensible knot, out of the way but without frills or ornamentation. It was almost refreshing to see someone dressed so plainly, for all the time he spent in formality.

"What did you expect of me?" He asked because he was curious. Everyone expected something of the king. What was it for this young woman, so simple and unassuming?

"Aloofness, I suppose," she admitted. "Most rich people hire a nursemaid because they can't be bothered; to see them, you'd think their children were an imposition. So I guess I thought… well… the _king_ …"

She dropped her gaze, but not before he caught the flush on her cheeks.

"I'm sorry. I'm being terribly rude."

"Not at all. I appreciate your candor," Regis said. "What is your name?"

"Crea, Your Majesty—Creare Vinculum."

"Crea," he said, turning his gaze back to Reina. "My queen is gone. All I have left of her are these two beautiful children, and yet, for all my desires, I cannot raise them myself. Would that I could. Alas, duty calls me elsewhere, as it always will. I fear they must grow up at another's hands but, be that as it may, I will not let them grow up without a father. The loss of one parent is quite enough."

"That's a wonderful sentiment, Your Majesty," Crea murmured, coming to stand next to him in front of Reina's crib.

"Sentiment will not win this battle."

"Maybe not by itself. But the feeling behind it might. Your Majesty." She added on the last hastily, as if she had just remembered who she was speaking to.

Regis gave a short, humorless smile. "Only time will tell."

Reina had finished her bottle, though she didn't seem ready to give it up. She objected only briefly when he took it away and passed it into Crea's outstretched hand.

"Will she go back to sleep?" He asked.

"She might," Crea said. "But you should burp her, first—that is, if you want to, Your Majesty. I'll do it, otherwise."

Regis blinked at her, trying to decide how to admit he had no idea what that meant. She saved him the trouble.

"It's very simple. Just hold her upright, against your shoulder, Your Majesty," she said.

She reached for the little blanket lain across the back of his chair as he hastened to do as she instructed. Once he had the blanket draped over his shoulder and Reina held against it, Crea stepped back.

"Now pat her on the back—a little more firmly, she's a tough little thing—just like that until she burps."

He did as he was instructed, casting a sideways glance at Reina as she settled her head against his shoulder. "Why is this done?" He asked, feeling uncharacteristically foolish.

"Babies swallow a lot of air when they're drinking milk; it helps get it out so they don't get fussy, after," Crea supplied, granting him a smile. He was starting to think she never stopped smiling. Even when she wasn't smiling, she was.

"And what is the purpose of the blanket?"

Crea tilted her head to one side, her smiling turning amused. "I thought you might like to keep your nice black suit black, instead of baby spit-up white, Your Majesty."

Whatever his face looked like at that revelation, it drew a laugh from her. She stopped herself, flushing and clapping one hand over her mouth.

"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't laugh at the king," she mumbled through her fingers.

"Someone probably should," Regis said gravely as he continued to pat Reina's back. "Else I may begin to take myself too seriously."

She dropped her hand. A shy smile took the place of the mortified look from before. "The other servants said you were kind," she admitted; there was something like approval in her voice.

"A man's character might be judged on how he treats his servants."

Her smile brightened. "I think that would be a good test."

They persisted in quiet company, exchanging only a few more words, until the little princess' stomach was properly settled. If Crea found him unlike she expected, Regis certainly found her different than _he_ had anticipated. Though he found that a certain level of aloofness maintained his kingly persona best, he was never unkind to her servants. The result was that his presence left many stricken and in awe. It wasn't exactly comfortable to be stared at and goggled over, but after a lifetime he was used to it.

Crea, however, didn't stare at him. She didn't lurk uncertainly, hovering like she wasn't sure what to do with herself while he was there. She checked that Noctis was comfortable and returned to her chair and her book, as if having the king take her job wasn't unusual at all. If she did cast him a curious glance through her lashes now and then, it was no more than what he did.

In the end she rose from her chair and declared that he could stop. He hadn't even had to deal with any baby spit-up.

"How is it done, then?" Regis inquired as Crea resettled the blankets around Reina. "How are they made to fall asleep, again?"

"With a great deal of patience, mostly," Crea said. She shot him a wry smile. "And a little arm muscle, as they get bigger. Different babies like different things and not all babies like the same thing all the time. You just have to try a few and hope for the best. Recently, Reina wants to be held on her stomach and walked up and down the room."

Regis rose from his armchair without hesitation. "How…?"

Crea reached up to take Reina. She settled the princess across her forearm so that the infant laid on her stomach and faced the ground, then braced and supported with her off hand. "A better fit, for you, I think," she commented. "Your arms are longer."

She passed his daughter back to him; Reina fussed at the treatment, but Regis mimicked Crea's demonstration in spite of her objections.

"Now what?"

"Now you walk. She likes the motion," Crea said, taking a step back.

Reina made another sound of discontentment, as if to make certain that everyone knew she didn't approve of being passed back and forth. Regis took a few hesitant steps toward the opposite of the room, trying to keep his motions smooth so as not to jar her.

"That is all?" He asked, certain he had done—or would do—something wrong.

"That's all there is to it," Crea smiled, dropping back into her chair. "If she cries you try something else and so on until she finally falls asleep. Sometimes it takes ages. But it really just comes down to getting to know the baby and their likes and dislikes."

It didn't sound so bad. Regis paced. He traced a line back and forth in the carpet, hardly watching where he was going because his eyes were fixed on Reina, instead. Her fussing never escalated into crying. Occasionally she made a discontent, humming sound and kicked her feet, but the longer he walked back and forth the less frequent it became. He watched her little fists loosen until one arm, freed from the blankets, dangled down past his. He watched her head loll forward and rest in the crook of his arm. Miraculously, he didn't walk into anything.

It was like magic. Once he had thought that there was something very mysterious to putting a child to sleep. Perhaps it really did just come down to patience, after all. That seemed to be what Crea had said and somehow, in spite of her age, she appeared to know a great deal.

"How long have you been doing this? Taking care of children," Regis asked.

"About three years," Crea responded, looking up from her book.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Three years! Forgive me—but you seem so young. You must not have been very old when you began."

She smiled, evidently unperturbed. "I was sixteen."

"That is quite young," Regis said. He had stopped walking, but Reina wasn't objecting. "Would it be it be disrespectful to ask why?"

"No," she smiled. "But it's something of a story, and I think someone has come looking for you."

Regis followed her eyes to the door, where Weskham stood.

"Sire," he bowed. "Forgive my intrusion. I merely wondered, when you did not return…"

"I have been schooled in the art of walking a baby to sleep," Regis said. He looked back at Crea. "Have I succeeded?"

He couldn't see Reina's face at all from where he stood and he was too afraid of shifting positions, lest he wake her.

Crea's eyes flicked toward the child in his arms and she nodded, the perpetual smile lingering in her eyes, even when it wasn't clear on her lips. "You have, Your Majesty."

"What is to be done, next?"

"Unless you intend to hold onto her all morning, I suggest you put her down to sleep in her crib." Crea nodded toward the vacant crib, beside the one where Noctis slept.

Regis considered, not at all certain that he didn't want to hold onto her all morning.

"Sire." Weskham called his attention. "It is dawn. Bastien Kurick is due to appear before the court in two hours. Do you intend to meet him?"

The king sighed, looking down at his sleeping daughter. That was the end of that, hope.

"I suppose I must," he said, but didn't take a step toward the crib.

"Then, might I suggest a fresh change of clothes and… ah… a bath, Sire."

 _Ah_.

When had the last time he had changed clothes been? Regis was uncertain, but it had been decidedly longer than was fitting. Weskham, as always, had an excellent point.

"Very well," Regis sighed, resigned to giving up his twins for several hours, at least. This time he did take the step toward Reina's crib, but it took an extra moment for him to work up the courage to actually set her down. What if he should wake her, on accident?

Finally, he did make an attempt. An excruciatingly slow and cautious one, but an attempt, nonetheless. He rested his arm on the mattress and, with his free hand on her back, slipped it out from underneath her, inch by inch. When at last he was free, Reina grumbled. Regis froze, hardly daring to breathe, but his fear was for naught. She resettled.

Regis let out a breath. He covered her up with the blanket folded at one end of the crib and smoothed his hand over her back.

"Sleep well, Little Princess."

He turned to the door, prepared to follow Weskham for duty and a new suit, but paused, remembering the nursemaid who had so patiently played host to him.

"I mean to have that story from you, some other time," he said.

"I'm here every night, Your Majesty," she said, a sort of open invitation.

He paused, having taken steps toward the doorway before he was struck by another thought. "I apologize for my ignorance, but I realize I have no concept of what it is you do here."

"Oh. I'm a wet nurse, Your Majesty."

Regis' confusion must have shown on his face, for she elaborated after only a moment's pause.

"A wet nurse breastfeeds and cares for children."

Oh.

 _Oh._

Regis wasn't sure whether he should be mortified or apologetic. Or neither. Of course he knew that babies needed milk, obviously, and that it had to come from somewhere, but it had never really occurred to him that it might come from a woman rather than a bottle. And he had just fed Reina from a bottle. Had that been…?

She was still smiling. In fact, from the way her eyes crinkled in the corners, he thought she might have been trying not to laugh at him. How undignified: standing there looking stunned at the revelation that… well. Never mind.

"Ah. Yes. Of course. Well, then. Perhaps I will see you again another night, as there is time."

He fled. He had faced down daemons and imperials and everything in between; he had negotiated a treaty with the First Secretary of Accordo, but the topic of breastfeeding and the sight of a woman laughing at him—even good-naturedly—sent the king running with his tail betwixt his legs.


	5. Shadows Upon Shadows

Weskham, wisely, made no comment about Regis' hasty retreat from the nursery. He merely followed in his king's wake right up until the point when Regis halted outside the entrance to his own rooms.

Before that moment it hadn't really occurred to him what the full implications were for having a change of clothes. All of his clothes were in that room and so, of course, were Aulea's. Along with everything else that had belonged to her. There was a reason why he had slept in his study that night, and it had very little to do with the princess.

"Sire?"

Regis glanced sideways at Weskham, hesitating still. The steward hadn't been with them, at the time; only Clarus had come along.

Finally Regis shook his head. "I cannot go inside that room again."

Weskham didn't object. He didn't even ask why, didn't press him. All he said was: "The room across the hall is vacant, I believe," as he gestured to the door to their left.

Regis shot him a grateful look and ducked into the unoccupied suite of rooms across from his. They were ostensibly guest rooms, although no one had stayed in them for years. The last person to occupy this particular suite had probably been Weskham himself. It was smaller than the king's, with the hall door opening into the bedroom, which doubled as a sitting room. To the right, pushed into the corner, was a neatly draped bed that matched the Citadel decor: black linens with a gold cast bed frame. Across from the foot of the bed were a pair of armchairs and a small, full-height table. A wardrobe took up the corner to the left, and just past that a doorway opened up into a bathroom. The window in the wall across from the entrance gave a view of the inner courtyard of the Citadel and the beam of light that powered the Wall, sprouting from the Crystal.

It was less homey than the room he had spent seven years filling and settling into—half of that time alongside Aulea—but it suited his purposes much better.

Weskham joined him a moment later to help him don a fresh suit and all of his formal wear for court. It was faster work than trying to do it himself, but it didn't help that usually Aulea stood in Weskham's place. He did an admirable job, all the same.

When he was dressed he, at the very least, _looked_ a little more himself. He didn't feel any better, but it hid well, beneath the crown.

"Breakfast, Sire."

Mealtime was rapidly becoming his least favorite time of the day, but he sat in one of the armchairs and deliberately picked through it, half trying to placate his steward and half because he knew he needed to eat. It didn't taste any more palatable than it had the day before.

"Regis…"

Regis looked up. For all they had known each other two-thirds of their lives, Weskham hardly ever called him by his first name. The only times when he did, outside of the more casual encounters that they shared with Clarus and Cor, were when he was preparing a lecture. Perhaps it had been watching Regis push the same bit of egg around his plate for the twelfth time that had prompted his tone. Whatever it was, the king winced inwardly just at his own name.

Weskham's lectures weren't like the sort a parent or a teacher gave. They weren't about duty and honor and they were rarely, if ever, chiding. All the same, they usually left him with a cold sense of guilt.

"I… would like you to know that I am here for you—all of us are—if you should need anything at all. I know that's my job description, but beyond that… if you should need to talk or to listen, or just to get out of your own head, I'll be there."

There it was. Guilt without the intent to cause it; guilt because they were all standing there hoping he would let them help and he couldn't.

"And I do hope you find some of the light left in this world," Weskham concluded.

Regis dropped his gaze back to his plate and prodded, noncommittal, at his eggs. "I will carry on," he said.

"I know you will, Sire, but that's not quite the same thing."

Regis nodded mutely and settled on another bite of toast. He couldn't think of anything else to say, so he didn't.

When he was through pretending to eat, Weskham took his breakfast tray out to the servants—of whom there were several waiting in the hall—and walked with him to court.

The king slowed as they passed the nursery on the way down. The door was still open and sunlight flooded in through the pulled back curtains. A different nursemaid sat in the armchair by the cribs, nursing Noctis.

"Your Majesty. We will be late," Weskham said from beside him, clearly reluctant to to pull him away.

"Yes, I know…" Regis sighed and continued on. It wasn't as if he had been away from them for very long—barely two hours and he could see them again, later. Whenever there was time.

For now they carried on: the council and Bastien Kurick awaited.

* * *

Bastien Kurick was not a tall man, but he held himself that way.

He was young. Younger than Regis might have expected for the man in charge of one of the most influential companies in all of Lucis, and he had a certain presence. Some people had presence like a searchlight in a foggy night. Kurick had presence like a black hole.

"Your Majesty." He gave a low, sweeping bow. If he had been wearing a hat, he would have whisked it from his brow and brushed the floor with it. As it was, he was merely wearing a clean cut and extraordinarily well-tailored suit. "May I just say what an honor it is to stand before you—though, of course, we have met briefly before."

"Is that so?" Regis couldn't rightly recall, but he had no idea whether that was because it had been an uneventful meeting or because his memory seemed to have died with his beloved.

"Yes, Sire: at the Duke of Aquila's celebration of Bahamut four years ago. I would hardly expect you to remember. A great many people were vying for your attention," Kurick said, his smile oozing amenability.

"Indeed," Regis said. He had some vague recollection of such an event, though, at the moment, could not call to mind any of the people he had encountered there. It hardly seemed to matter.

"I should also like to offer my sincerest thanks for being so forgiving of my schedule. I fear everything has been rather hectic, the past few weeks. So many of my people indisposed and yet… the show must go on." He gave a theatrical shrug. Regis noted that he made no admission of guilt, though the accusation was that _he_ was responsible for the loss of his workers.

Regis pursed his lips, knowing full well his expression was hardly visible from where Kurick stood all the way at the base of the stairs—he had gone so far to express his submission to the court that he had not even climbed to the landing where the stairs split in two, but stood well below. For all Kurick gave thanks, he'd been given little choice on the matter. A squad of crownsguards had been sent to ensure that he arrived on time for his meeting with them, that morning.

The question that Regis couldn't answer was whether or not to press the issue. Did it imply weakness on their part to pretend Kurick had been given free will in the matter? Was pointing out that he hadn't incredibly base? And _why_ couldn't he think straight? It was the sort of decision he should have made in a split second. He _could_ have done it, before.

His hesitation stretched only for a moment before Clarus filled in the gaps, just as he had the day before.

"Bastien Kurick, your company, Phoenix Incorporated, is accused of dumping hazardous waste at a warehouse site in the outer city," Clarus said, rising from his seat among the council.

Regis was torn between relief and frustration. On the one hand, Clarus' presence and his keen observance smoothed over the worst of Regis' blunders. On the other hand, he shouldn't have had to. It shouldn't have been so difficult.

Even as he spoke, a silent battle waged in the king's skull. He fought for control of his focus and he wasn't winning.

 _What does it matter?_ Muttered that terrible, persistent voice in the back of his mind. _They will carry on without and all I want is to be left alone._

 _I must do_ something _,_ he told himself, though images of Aulea danced before his eyes.

Clarus was recounting casualties when Regis managed to tune back in: "...were seven hundred ninety three people with symptoms fitting exposure. This does not include the deaths…."

 _All I want is Aulea_.

He couldn't get her out of his head: her beautiful smile, so bright even when her light was fading; the way her black hair shimmered in the sunlight when she sat on the bed and ran a comb through it in the morning; how she looked so small when she was propped up in her chair by the window all day, turning thread into art; the sound of his name on her lips when he returned after an exceedingly long day.

"...a full investigation regarding the persons involved in said dumping," Clarus was saying, with an air of finality.

Regis shifted in his chair. Were they still talking about Phoenix's misdeeds? It seemed whenever he blinked minutes flew past and he hardly noticed. The time was slipping through his fingers like water: no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop it leaking out.

"If you will permit me: accusation is not synonymous with guilt, Master Amicitia," Bastien Kurick said, apparently far from undone by whatever lecture Clarus had just given him.

It was a bold claim, and not one that Regis had anticipated.

 _I ought to have_ , he thought bitterly. _If only I could_ think _._

If only he could hold onto one little thought for three seconds without seeing her face before his eyes, instead.

Kurick was standing there before them, for all intents and purposes claiming that his company was innocent of the charges levelled at him. Regis could hardly see any indication that they _could_ be innocent, but, then again…

"There is evidence, of course," Clarus said, "And you are free to submit your own, but as I have said there will be a full investigation and we will draw our own conclusions from what is discovered, regardless of what Phoenix Incorporated posits."

In the outer city, people were dying. _His_ people. They were clamoring in the streets for their king to take action against the atrocities committed by Phoenix Incorporated, and yet all he could do was sit there and mope about what he had lost. Had others not lost as much or more? There were those who had lost families and friends, their health, their livelihood. He had only lost his queen.

 _Only_.

"Of course," Kurick said with a little bow. Arrogance seeped from his smile. "I have no doubt that your investigators will get to the bottom of this mess quickly so that we can all get back to work. Furthermore, I have no doubt that, should evidence of such hazardous disposal come to light, that your investigators will be able to draw the connection—without a shadow of doubt—between these poor people falling ill and the waste." He chose his words carefully and none missed the fact. No admission of guilt, just a careful hint—a taunt that they would never be able to pin Phoenix Incorporated down.

Regis gripped the arms of his throne until his knuckles turned white. He should have been doing something. He should have taken that cocky bastard and thrown him in jail on the spot for what he had done. And yet… how could he be absolutely sure that Kurick _was_ guilty, when he was sure of nothing else at all?

Was he doomed to let others make this decision for him, while still more died in hospital?

"I daresay there will be no doubt at all, once all is said and done," said Clarus, with a certain measure of control in his tone.

A glance told Regis that his Shield was nearly as irked with Kurick as he was, but Clarus, at least, did not have the added frustration of not being able to do anything about it. It was like there was a great, impenetrable wall blocking Regis off from everything he should have been able to do. He could pound his fists against it and scream all he liked. It wasn't coming down.

Bastien Kurick gave another low, sweeping bow. "If that is all? I mean not to rush, but I have hundreds of employees to replace, or Insomnia will have to go without her manufactured necessities."

"The committee appointed to investigate Phoenix Incorporated will be in contact with you; you will give them your full cooperation," Clarus said stiffly.

"Of course," Kurick said. "My company is at your disposal."

He withdrew, leaving the council with the feeling that they hadn't so much dismissed him as he had called an end to the meeting, himself. It was an irksome feeling. Worse, still, was the fact that Regis couldn't at all be certain he wasn't overreacting.

Kurick had all but announced his intent to fire hundreds of people due to his own neglect, and, no matter how that angered him, Regis couldn't think of a single thing to do about it. There weren't any laws specifically forbidding it. Perhaps there ought to have been, but there was scarcely time to draft something and rush it through in time to help those people. Surely he was missing some loophole, something that could be done in the meantime.

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his throne and tried to focus. It was a bit like trying to catch a Flan. The harder he squeezed, the faster it slipped from his grasp.

"Your Majesty." Clarus drew his attention and he found that the full council was looking at him. Had something been said that he had missed, or were they just waiting for further instructions? He decided not to worry about which one it was.

"Is there anything we can do for those people, Clarus?" Regis asked, casting his gaze back down the length of the audience hall. "Before every one of them loses their livelihood."

It wasn't right. They were sitting in hospital beds and they should have been focused on getting better, rather than what would be waiting for them when they returned—or what would happen if they didn't force themselves upright sooner than was prudent.

"You could… order a freeze on the company, Your Majesty," Clarus suggested after a moment. "Since the investigation entails the whole of the company and everyone who was working there at the time, you could demand that no permanent changes be made until this is concluded."

"That will only help these people in the short term," Hamon said.

"But it will buy us time," Clarus reasoned. "Enough for a more permanent solution."

Regis nodded, still not looking at any of them. Indeed, he looked at nothing at all. Nothing that was there, in any case.

"See it done," he said. "Draft the order and send it to my desk to be signed."

It was all he could think to do for them. With a sinking feeling, it occurred to him that he might as well get used to feeling that his best was insufficient.


	6. Concerning Habits

By rights Clarus should have been home by that hour, but for the past month he had been spending increasingly longer hours at the Citadel. It wasn't without precedent and Fidelia, Astrals bless her, was incredibly understanding in trying times. The fact was that Clarus couldn't, in good conscience, leave Regis unattended.

Weskham had been a Godsend, himself. It must have been wearing at him as much as it was at Clarus, but he never spoke a word of complaint, even though he didn't have a wife and child to return home to and never got a moment to decompress.

Yet that night, when Clarus stopped by the king's study in search of his friend, he found Weskham instead, alone.

Clarus poked his head in, glancing from one side of the room to the other to make certain he hadn't missed anything. "His Majesty?"

"In the nursery." Weskham supplied, hardly looking up from the stack of papers he was organizing on Regis' desk.

"Thank the Gods," Clarus sighed, stepped in, and dropping onto the lounge.

Weskham gave him a knowing smile. It wasn't so much that it was a relief to have someone else—namely, one of the nursemaids—looking after him, but that these days it seemed the only way the king ever let himself let go and just _be_ was when he was with his children.

"I gather that things are not going well in court," Weskham observed, stacking a pile of papers neatly on one corner of Regis' desk and picking up a few stray sheets, which he flipped idly through.

"It's painful to watch. I expect it's worse for him," Clarus sighed, leaning back against the high back of the lounge. "Every time anyone speaks, I watch in his eyes as he struggles to focus on them. Invariably they glaze over after a few seconds and he completely loses the trail of conversation. On the rare occasion that he manages to glean enough to act, he cannot. Or does not. I don't know. It's like…"

"The lights are on, but no one is home," Weskham supplied, finishing off the last of his organization and coming to join Clarus in the sitting area.

"Precisely," Clarus agreed darkly, "And he won't give himself a break."

"That, I believe, is the root of the problem."

"The root of the problem is Aulea—" Clarus sighed and waved a dismissive hand. Weskham knew that, obviously. That wasn't solvable.

Weskham was silent for a moment; he always had that gaze that made you believe he knew more about what was going on in your head than even you did. At length he spoke, moving past Clarus' pointless comment as if it hadn't been voiced at all.

"He has spent a lifetime dedicated to being what he needs to be. The suggestion that perhaps, for once, he should set his duty down and do something for himself is not one he is easily able to accept," Weskham said.

"So what do we do?"

Weskham shook his head, indicating that he didn't know any more than Clarus did.

"If only he would admit how much he's hurting inside. But he won't speak of a thing—has he said anything at all about her to you?" Clarus asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. He clasped his hands and looked up at Weskham, hoping for some shred of wisdom from the man who had always been the most perceptive of the king's retinue.

"Not a word," Weskham said. "I do not know whether he is trying to convince himself that it isn't there, or if he believes it is pointless to discuss when we all know it is. Either way, he alludes to things that trouble him but never to the source. He refuses to step foot in his own chambers, but he won't meet my gaze when he asks me to do it for him. He never explains himself and I know that if I were to ask he would merely tell me that I already know the answer."

"Well you do," Clarus said, dropping his gaze to his clasped hands.

"That is hardly the point," Weskham said severely. He sat in the armchair across from Clarus, his back as straight and stiff as if he had a metal rod up the back of his vest. Perhaps he did.

Clarus shook his head, looking up. "I know. I'm sorry," he sighed. "If he spoke to someone else, do you suppose…? Someone who never knew her?"

"You are begging the question, my friend," Weskham said. "Assuming that he wants to talk about it at all."

"Wouldn't it be better if he did?"

"Perhaps. But we each heal in our own way. You knew her nearly as well as he did. Do you not mourn her passing?" Weskham inquired, his tone light, but somehow Clarus found an accusation in it all the same.

"Of course I do! Aulea was a beautiful person, inside and out. Her death leaves the world a darker place."

Weskham raised his eyebrows, looking down his nose at Clarus. "And yet, I hear you speak little of her, as well."

"I suppose I have preferred to keep them to myself. Is it so bad to hold my thoughts of her over a quiet drink?"

Weskham's expression remained unchanging.

"Ah. I see what you mean," Clarus said. "But Regis doesn't even do that, does he?"

"He certainly has a stiff drink now and again," Weskham noted, his eyes falling on the crystal decanter of amber liquid that sat on Regis' coffee table beside an empty glass. "But you're right, of course. I suspect even that is not used for catharsis. If anything he uses it to deaden the relentless march of memories, when he ought to embrace them."

"Has he even been to visit her tomb?"

Weskham shook his head. "No. I believe he thinks that allowing himself to have these thoughts—to dwell on her, to acknowledge what he feels at her passing—will make him ineffective at his work."

"He is already ineffective," Clarus growled.

"More ineffective," Weskham said. "His duty is, and always has been, his life. What can he do, if not that?"

"And his children?"

"The prince and princess are the one thing that gives me hope for his future. If only he would accept more time and simply be with them—it would go a long way in the healing process, I think," said Weskham.

Clarus nodded mutely, feeling just as drained and out of ideas as he had before they sat down together. If nothing else, though, it was reassuring to have someone to share thoughts with. The whole process would have been considerably more trying without Weskham.

"I'll try to encourage him to see them whenever there is a moment," Clarus said, fighting back a yawn.

"As will I," Weskham said. "But for now, you may as well go home. You've done enough for one day. I will see to it that he gets ample time with the children, tonight, and do my best to convince him to take some rest in between."

"I don't envy you that," Clarus said, rising from the lounge. "You would probably have better luck putting both twins to bed at once."

"Doubtless correct," Weskham agreed, standing as well. "But I'll try, nonetheless."

Clarus offered him a smile and clasped Weskham's shoulder. "Your best is all anyone can ask of you."

He released Weskham and moved for the door, but halted in the doorway and turned back around. "And Weskham," he said. "Don't forget that you knew her, too. Don't forget to feel it, in between everything else."

Weskham gave a stiff bow; he wore a wry smile when he straightened. "In every spare moment."

The smile, Clarus knew, was because there were no spare moments. Clarus sighed, returning the gesture with a tight smile of his own and a nod, before he withdrew, heading back to the only refuge he knew: his home and family.


	7. Stories

One more day.

One more day of useless stagnation. One more day of smashing his fists pointlessly into the walls of the invisible cage that surrounded him. One more day of reaching and straining and trying so hard that at the end of it he _ached_ with exhaustion.

It was all for naught.

In the end, everything had happened just as it had every day for the past month: Clarus had taken control, covering for the king's inefficacy, and had explained everything to him over and over again afterwards, with an air of forced calm. Then, in spite of the bone-deep weariness that haunted his every move, he prowled the halls at night, restless and unable to sleep.

It was no help that Weskham lurked in doorways, watching, with poorly concealed concern on his features. He wasn't the only one doing it, either. Weskham and Clarus held hushed conferences whenever they were left alone together, crownsguards shot each other looks behind his back, servants gazed at him with pity when they thought he wasn't looking, and every time he walked past, Cor's mouth tightened like he was preventing himself from saying something.

There was only one place he could go to get away from it all, one place where no one expected anything of him, no one was worried about him, no one hovered and offered to do anything or everything to make him feel better.

The sound of babies crying usually drew parents at a frantic pace; it was designed that way, he supposed, but it wasn't the traditional reason that led him to follow the sound. He wasn't worried that anything was wrong or that they were being mistreated; it drew him like a Siren drew a sailor. It should have been a grating sound and, indeed, he would have given most anything to make it stop, but it was also musical. It was pain and discomfort and sorrow, but it was simple. It was life at its most basic form.

If everything could have been so raw and elementary, the world would have been cleaner.

Regis stopped in the doorway. Crea was on her own in the nursery; sometimes she was and sometimes she wasn't, but he was lead to believe that whenever she was help was only a moment away, should it prove necessary. At that moment, it looked to be. She wrestled with one squalling baby—Noctis—while the other lay bawling in her crib. In spite of her preoccupation, she looked up when he entered.

He had expected her to look frazzled, perhaps frustrated, and certainly—if nothing else—weary. What he hadn't expected was to find her much as he usually did: quiet and composed, with a smile more on her eyes than her lips.

"Good, you're here," she said, pushing Noctis into his arms unceremoniously and bending down to pick up Reina. "There's a bottle in the fridge. See if you can't get him to take it."

That was it. No 'Your Majesty', no 'how are you feeling, Regis?', 'what are you doing up so late, Sire?', 'when was the last time you ate, Your Majesty?'. No pomp. No formality. No kingdom looking up to him. No difficult decisions to make. Just a little room full of chaos and screaming babies where the only thing he had to be was a father.

He gathered the little prince up into his arms and moved toward the other room. There wasn't anything else to be done; there was no space for conversation with two babies crying and, really, what did they need it for, anyway?

A quick search of the fridge revealed one bottle already prepared and ready to be warmed. Regis dropped it into the warmer as Crea had shown him a few weeks ago, and shuffled the squalling baby around.

"Noctis, hush, my son. It is coming," he murmured, shifting Noct so he faced outward. "See?"

At the sight of the bottle, Noctis' cried grew less pronounced. They settled into a low whine as his dark blue eyes fixed on the milk. For a moment, Regis thought that might placate him for long enough for the milk to warm up, but a baby's patience was finite and highly limited. In a few more moments, when the food remained out of his reach, Noctis began to cry once more.

With the milk still half-warmed, Regis did his best to distract the little prince through other measures. A month of nighttime visits hadn't eliminated his belief that Crea could have calmed a crying baby in a hurricane, but it had, at least, expanded his own arsenal of knowledge. He picked through the things that had worked in the past, one at a time. Each one fell short.

Regis showed the crying baby his own scrunched up face in the mirror, tried half a dozen different positions, attempted peek-a-boo distraction tactics, explored each of the toys that were sitting out on the table for precisely that purpose, and made countless weird faces and silly noises of his own. Still, Noctis cried.

He paced up and down, rocking the little prince in his arms; he patted Noct's back and wrapped him up in a blanket; he held the infant upright on the table beside the bottle warmer and tried to reason with him. Yet still, Noctis cried.

He couldn't tell, anymore, if Reina was still crying in the other room. The only thing he seemed to be able to hear was Noctis and it seemed unlikely that Crea would have so much trouble. She never did, somehow. But Noctis cried and his nurse didn't come to rescue him from his bumbling father, so Regis made do.

It seemed a full hour before the warmer chimed and the king heaved a sigh of relief. _Finally_ that was through with and he could at last do something. He shifted Noct in his arms, plucked the bottle from the warmer, and and held it in front of Noctis' mouth. The prince's cries subsided to humming whines once more and he latched onto the offered bottle.

Regis let out a breath. The sudden quiet seemed jarring. It was clear, now, that Reina _wasn't_ crying, though he had already surmised as much.

The peace was destined not to last.

Noctis drank less than half the bottle before he turned his head away, breaking his connection with the bottle, and began to cry once more. Puzzled, Regis offered it once more to similar end.

"All that effort and you will not have it, after all?" Regis asked the bawling child. Predictably, Noctis gave no response. Leastways nothing that was intelligible.

Having used up every trick he had learned in the past month from Crea, he returned to the other room with the mostly-full bottle and the screaming infant to sheepishly admit he was out of his depth.

"He does not seem to want it," Regis said, holding the still-warm bottle in one hand while Noct, laid across his arm, flailed tiny fists and screamed.

Crea looked up when he entered. She was sitting in her usual chair, holding an apparently content Reina against her breast. Regis hesitated, suddenly uncertain what the proper protocol was for such a situation. Was he expected not to be there at all? Should he turn and go back to the other room? Avert his gaze? Apologize?

"Of course not," Crea sighed, taking no notice of his clear discomfort and the faint flush on his cheeks. "Trade me babies, then. I'll let you have the easy one."

She rose from her seat, pulling Reina away and her top back into place. The princess made a single sound of objection at being deprived of her midnight meal and being so carelessly handed off to someone else, but that was all. She didn't cry again.

"She'll take the bottle, I think. At least part of it," Crea said, once the babies were swapped.

"Is there… anything wrong with him?" Regis asked as he juggled baby and bottle so he could offer Reina the milk her brother had spurned.

Never before had Noctis—or, indeed, Reina—been so troublesome about falling asleep when he visited. For a few days, Regis had even thought he had become quite good at handling them. Now it seemed all that was turned on its head.

"He's tired—overtired, that is," Crea said as she coaxed fussing Noct to latch properly. "It seems he didn't have his fourth nap today, but no one thought to put him to bed early because of it. Now he can't fall asleep or else he keeps waking himself up—and that's waking Reina up."

She looked up at him as Noct was finally settled. There was some expression that he couldn't quite place on her features, something he had never seen there before. Exasperation? Annoyance?

Reina had taken hold of the bottle, apparently not in the least put off by the fact that it didn't meet her twin's expectations.

"Why did he not nap?" Regis asked.

"Why didn't you take four naps, today?" Crea asked by way of response.

Regis blinked, caught off-guard. "I—"

Crea laughed. "I'm only teasing, Your Majesty. Babies must grow out of their naps someday, no? This is about the time they drop the fourth one."

It made sense. And yet…

"But if he is overtired now, is that not the reason why?"

There it was again. That flash of something uncharacteristically sharp on her usually sweet face. She shook her head and looked down at Noctis as he began to fuss once more. "No. They're meant to grow out of the naps, but it's not an instantaneous process. They can't go from having four to three overnight and if they do it spells trouble. It's just possible to shuffle everything around and make it work; if done correctly they should drop the last nap and move their bedtime _up_ to compensate." The annoyance in her expression was more pronounced when she looked up again; it was clearly annoyance and not anything else, now. "He _should_ have been put to bed earlier tonight, but he wasn't. They let him up to the same time Reina was ready for bed, but _she_ had four naps."

So that was the root of it. Annoyance at whomever had been in charge of putting the children to sleep that night.

Crea resettled Noct, who had broken away, and managed to get him to quiet once more. There was an endless patience about her when she was dealing with them; it eliminated any possibility that she was irked at Noct for being sleepless rather than those responsible.

"I see," Regis said. "Who was responsible for the misstep?"

"I'm not sure. Either the nurses who had the evening shift and put them to bed, or Mistress Dyana—who decides all the scheduling for the twins."

Regis tucked the information away without response, saving it for future reference. The fact was that he wasn't as well acquainted with most of his childrens' caretakers as he ought to have been. As guilty as it made him, there simply wasn't time. He had met most of the nurses and he had a passing familiarity with Mistress Dyana, the nanny, but mostly he visited at night, which meant mostly he saw Crea. So far, she had proven herself both reliable and competent. The others he couldn't definitively say the same for.

It was some time further before Crea convinced the finicky prince to fall asleep. Reina subsided much more easily, giving no complaint when Regis took a seat in the armchair near the door and held her against his shoulder. She was solidly out, only stirring when Noctis fussed, which he did frequently for nearly an hour before he finally fell asleep.

Crea didn't transfer him to the crib immediately, like she usually did. She continued to hold him, rocking steadily back and forth in her chair without pause.

Regis considered her for a few moments. It was difficult to believe that it was only a month ago he had walked in and surprised her in the middle of the night, looking for a bottle for Reina. These days she seemed to have little trouble forgetting who he was. There was nothing stiff or formal about their interactions. Indeed, sometimes _he_ forgot who he was, until she threw in the occasional 'Your Majesty.'

She, doubtless, knew everything about him—all of the public things, in any case—whereas he knew next to nothing about her. He knew she was young and somehow still knew a great deal more about children than he ever could have hoped to learn. He knew that she was gentle and patient, and that when she looked at his children she looked like she was in love. He knew that she always found some reason to smile, somehow. That was something, perhaps, he should have learned from her.

"I believe you owe me a story," Regis said, hooking the nearby footstool with one foot and pulling it over so he could prop his legs up.

"You're never too old for a bedtime story, Your Majesty. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise," she said. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.

" _Your_ story," he said, sidestepping her intentional misunderstanding and aiming straight for the point.

"Oh yes! I had quite forgotten." Crea smiled. "It's not as good as the other bedtime stories I know, though. Are you sure you wouldn't rather hear about Argo and the Anak?"

Regis fixed her with a stern expression. A month ago the look would have caused her to wilt and beg for forgiveness. Tonight she just sighed; she didn't even have the good grace to look contrite.

"Very well. You wanted to know, I believe, why I began working in childcare at sixteen, yes? The reason, I suppose, is because I was very foolish at fifteen. But no—it goes back further than that. My mother was a nanny. She was foolish at fifteen, as well, or perhaps a little older, and that was how _I_ was born. She must have been a little older, I think, because she finished school. In any case, I always remember her being a nanny. I was always juggled along with other people's children, so even though I was an only child, I wasn't, really. Certainly I was never at a loss for friends, and I don't think I was really jealous, because at night we went home and it was just me and Ma and a nice cup of cocoa.

"In any case, I grew up around children and babies. As soon as I was old enough to hold a bottle that wasn't my own I was helping, so that's where my education comes from—it's the three years of working, of course, but a lot more before that, too. Eventually I had to go off to school and there was a little less time, with homework and activities, for me to help out, but by that time she was well established and we weren't struggling. We were never well-off like the people she worked for, but we got a little two bedroom condo that suited us just fine.

"So. That sets the stage. The story, then, begins with—as I said—a very foolish fifteen-year-old me. I was in my second year of high school when I met a boy and fell in love. Or I thought I was in love. Most fifteen-year-old girls will tell you they know what love is, but most of them are probably wrong. I was certainly wrong. He was sweet and he was charming and he was absolutely the wrong sort. But he swept me off my feet and I did a stupid thing and got pregnant.

"My mother was furious. She told me she never wanted me to make the same mistake she did, but there I was, anyway. The apple and the tree. She loved me too much to kick me out, at least—and she wasn't enough of a hypocrite to try, anyway—which was just as well because _he_ up and fled as soon as he got wind of things. I don't think I ever saw him again. Broke my little fifteen-year-old heart, but I was going to have the baby, anyway. The purest things in Eos. How could I destroy one for my own foolishness?

"Well, that was the plan, anyway. I dropped out of school and we were ready for it; my mother was prepared to support me and the baby, both, but it never came down to it... Ma died in a car accident. She left everything to me, so I had the condo, but there had never been much by way of savings. I spent the next month frantically doing sums, trying to think how I could support myself and a baby. I'd already been out of school for a full grade and I knew I couldn't go back. Not because of the system, but because of me. I wouldn't have been able to focus. After everything else it just seemed so… inane.

"At the end of that month, whatever Gods were watching decided to lighten my load…. She was stillborn. That was worse than finding out I had no idea what being in love meant. So much love and care and preparation and I never even had the chance to meet her." She rocked steadily in her chair, her tone never changing. It seemed extraordinary—impossible, even—that she could speak about losing the two most important people in her life in the course of a month and sound so calm. She didn't sound _happy_ , certainly. In fact, it was one of the few times he had ever seen her _not_ smiling. But she wasn't broken, either.

"One less mouth to feed, but I still had no money, and the bills were starting to come in. There are only a few things that a young woman in the outer city can do to support herself when she hasn't even finished high school. Don't look at me like that—you already know how this story ends. My body and brain were already prepared to take care of a child, so I put myself out, as a wet nurse, at sixteen. And the rest, as they say, is history."

Whatever he had been expecting, between all of her teasing about bedtime stories, after a month of endless smiles and the tender care she gave to his children, _that_ was not it. She had lost her mother and her child in practically the same breath, and she had only just been sixteen.

"But you…" Regis paused, trying to find the words. He didn't sit up, for fear of disturbing Reina, but he shifted in his chair. "You smile _so much_."

She looked so young. Once he might even have called her naive, but it seemed an inapt description, now.

"Of course," she said simply. "I'd go crazy if I didn't smile."

Regis considered. He rested his head against the back of his chair and tried to remember the last time he had smiled. It was for Noctis, surely, or Reina. The only things he enjoyed now were them. Everything else was broken glass and crushed dreams.

"When does it become easier?" He asked, looking at the wall behind her more than Crea herself.

Crea fixed him with a calculating gaze. She didn't respond immediately. The silence stretched long enough that he actually looked at her and caught the expression on her face.

"It takes more than a month," she said at last, her voice soft.

Regis dropped his gaze. His eyes were burning, suddenly. He shut them, hoping it would abate, but it did very little good.

He heard Crea stand and put Noctis back in his bed, then cross the room to throw a blanket over Reina and his shoulders before returning to her chair. Regis didn't move. He had no intention of putting Reina to bed. If she had no objections to staying right where she was then he wasn't going to change a thing.

"It doesn't happen all at once." Crea spoke again, at length. "There are good days and there are bad days, and it never stops hurting but eventually the good ones outnumber the bad."

"How do you survive the bad ones?" Regis asked, not opening his eyes.

"However you can," Crea said. "By staying in bed and drinking your favorite tea, or… coming to the nursery and holding your children for as long as you need to."

He was only half-conscious of shifting and putting his free hand on Reina's back beneath the blanket. He didn't say anything else and neither did Crea; it was just understood. She knew why he was there and she didn't object when he didn't leave. She didn't even comment when he woke the following morning, still sitting in the chair by the door with his daughter in his arms.

All she said was, "Good morning, Your Majesty."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading!


	8. Hope

"Cor."

Marshal Cor Leonis looked up from the list of names laying on the desk before him. In the doorway stood Clarus; Cor couldn't fight the little bit of hope that sparked at the sight of his old friend—not that he would have ever admitted it. If he had thought ten years ago—and he had—that standing at the head of the Crownsguard was going to be anything but paperwork, he had been sorely wrong. Just one more thing he was never going to admit.

"Clarus," Cor said, straightening. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I am sending Regis to visit some people in hospital. He'll need an escort, and I expect you'll want to be at the fore." Clarus cut straight to the chase, but Cor's mind stuck on those first few words.

" _You_ are sending _him_ ," he repeated, though they both knew full well that was what Clarus had said.

He didn't miss the hesitation that crossed Clarus' face, as if he hadn't meant to say it that way at all. Clarus glanced at the door and took another step into Cor's office. "That is, more or less, the case. He hasn't set foot outside the Citadel since the queen's death and I harbor some vain hope that it might help."

Cor folded his arms over his chest. "You hope it may help, or you hope it may remove him from court so you can stop dancing around him?"

Annoyance flashed on Clarus' face. "All of the first and none of the second. I don't dance around him in court."

"That doesn't match with what I've heard," Cor commented. "How long has it been? Six weeks? Has he done anything with Phoenix, or has that been entirely you?"

His words struck a chord, perhaps because they were the truth. Six weeks and the king was still behaving as if his wife had died just yesterday. He hadn't made an inch of progress, as far as Cor could see; he still sent every meal back to the kitchen half-eaten; he still prowled the corridors at night, sleepless; he still sat in court with that distant look in his eyes, like he was miles away. Cor and Weskham were of no help to him. They hovered like old maids, rushing to cater to his every need and held hushed conferences whenever Regis was out of earshot.

"Sometimes you make it very easy to forget how young you are," Clarus said, his voice sharp. "This is not one of those times. I don't wish it on you, but I expect, unavoidably, someday you will experience loss as Regis has. When that day comes I hope those who stand by you are more forgiving than yourself. For now, please organize an escort to take His Majesty to Reliqua Hospital in three days."

He turned on his heel and left without another word, leaving Cor to wonder if he had overstepped his boundaries. Eventually he shook his head, pulled out his chair, and sat down at his desk. Perhaps he would experience loss like that someday. It seemed reasonable to expect, given his age with respect to his friends', and his profession. But he had a hard time envisioning himself turning into an indecisive mess in that event.

* * *

Five weeks, six days and—Regis checked the clock on the dashboard—seven hours since he had held her hand and pled, pointlessly, not to be left alone. He still hadn't gone back to the room since that first night, still hadn't slept in that bed. Clarus insisted he was doing better in court, but to Regis it seemed a white lie: well-meaning, perhaps, but ultimately worthless.

Now he was sitting in the Regalia for the first time in months, watching the gates to the Citadel close behind him as Cor hit the accelerator.

His faithful bodyguard had been characteristically silent all morning. Indeed, Cor had spoken very little to him in comparison to how much everyone else seemed compelled to fuss over him. It might have been refreshing, but there was an intensity in the silence that rang out over what should have been a comfortable car ride.

"You think me a fool, Cor?" He asked at last. It wasn't an accusation, just a question.

"Sire?" Cor's eyes flicked toward him in the mirror.

"For all the stumbling about in the dark I have done these past weeks. I _feel_ a fool," Regis said, his tone quiet as he looked out the window, watching the people they passed on the streets through tinted windows. Pedestrians stopped and pointed to his car as it sped past; they couldn't see him, but they knew he was there. "Am I?"

Cor was nothing if not honest, sometimes to the point of being blunt. Regis couldn't have asked Clarus or Weskham; they would have said no, even if the answer was yes, but Cor… Cor would tell him.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Cor said at last.

Regis nodded. "I suspected as much."

If only Cor's stoicism also held the answer to how to stop being such a fool.

"I have never fought a foe I could not engage…." Regis trailed his fingers over the smooth leather trim on the inside of the Regalia. "Either with blade or word. This one responds neither to force nor to reason. Yet I must defeat it all the same."

"You must do your duty," said Cor.

"My duty…" Regis tapped his fingers against the seat. That was what it all came down to, wasn't it? It was all he strove for, yet for the past weeks he had found it out of his reach, no matter how he strained. 'Cannot', however, was not an option.

"I will find a way, Cor," Regis said, looking up at last. "There is no other option."

Cor met his gaze for an instant in the mirror and gave the tiniest nod before his eyes dropped back to the road.

"And you will push me when I falter." It was more a request than an observation. "I have far too many people standing about wringing their hands over me."

"Yes, Sire," Cor said, and Regis thought he heard the barest hint of approval in his tone.

The Regalia pulled up in front of the hospital. It was an old building on the edge of the business district: grey stone and creeping ivy, with a likeness of The Oracle guarding its doors. Strictly speaking, there shouldn't have been such a thing as a nicer or poorer hospital in Insomnia: the Crown guaranteed health for all of its subjects and that meant that equal healthcare was available anywhere inside the Crown City. There were, however, such things as nicer parts of the city. This wasn't one of them.

A small crowd had gathered by the time that Cor opened the door for him—which happened, not because Regis had anything against opening doors all by himself, but because Cor had something against Regis opening doors in unpredictable areas. Apparently, this counted as one of those.

In addition to Cor, and in separate cars from the pair of them, the king was accompanied by a small retinue of crownsguards and one attendant. He had left Weskham in the Citadel to see to matters with Clarus in his stead, though Regis had little doubt they would be more effective without him. For his purposes, today, he really only needed someone with a list of names, but he had brought along a trusted retainer, Avunculus Scientia.

"Avun," Regis motioned to him as the latter climbed out of the car behind the Regalia.

"Sire, I have what you asked for." Avunculus hurried to his side, drawing a ledger from the inside pocket of his coat. "I have been advised that there are three hundred patients here still being treated for symptoms of hazardous waste exposure. If you intend to see them all in the four hours that Master Armaugh has scheduled, it leaves less than a minute per person. Approximately forty-five seconds each, in fact."

Regis' brow furrowed. That didn't seem right, but he couldn't put his finger on whether or not a change had actually been made since his last update, or if he had just not been paying attention. "Three hundred?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. There were planned to be fewer, but it seems that transfers have been made in an effort to consolidate them; the vast majority of exposure victims who remain in hospital are now housed here."

So it was a change of plans, then. Regis considered. Or he tried to, anyway, while the dark little voice in the back of his mind whispered the forbidden word.

 _Cannot_.

At the top of the shallow set of steps leading up to the hospital doors, the hospital administrator was waiting for them with a handful of her staff, and Regis was standing in the middle of a knot of crownsguards who kept the rapidly growing crowds at bay, hesitating once again. This time there was no Clarus to fall back on. This time there was no one to smooth over the awkward hesitation as he tried to decide what the best course of action was between an undetermined number of options.

"Your Majesty?" Avunculus was still waiting for some sort of input. Everyone else was waiting for Regis to make some move—any move at all.

"Regis."

Cor stepped in front of him, blocking off everything else. His face was set in that perpetual scowl that he usually wore. There was no soft empathy like Regis had come to expect from Clarus and, though he had told Cor to push him just moments before, he missed its absence.

"Make a decision," Cor said, his tone matching his face, though he kept his voice low to prevent behind overheard. He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, but how was Regis supposed to choose when he didn't even know what the choices were? Every time he tried to think it was like hitting his head against the inside of a glass cage. Painful and pointless.

 _I cannot do this_ , whispered the hopeless voice in the back of his mind.

"No one is going to do it for you. So you make a choice and you live with it. Any choice. _Move on_ ," Cor said.

Any choice.

Cor hadn't told him to make a good choice, or even the best choice. Just to make _any_ choice.

Regis set his jaw and forced himself to stand a little straighter.

 _Can,_ he thought defiantly back at the sniveling voice.

"How many still in other hospitals, Avun?" Regis said, pulling his eyes away from Cor and looking instead at his attendant. Cor didn't move, remaining just a step away in case he needed to beat further sense into him.

"A few dozen at the most, Sire."

A few dozen could be visited in an afternoon, which freed up whatever other time Weskham had scheduled for hospital visitation in the future. For the life of him, Regis couldn't recall if there was such time scheduled or, indeed, if he had been told of it, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that he made a choice and make it now.

"Have Weskham reschedule the rest of my day. Clarus has my vote on the council and my place in court; that should suffice for one day. Other matters that I must see to personally can be done tomorrow," Regis said.

"Then you intend to see them all, today?" Avunculus asked, drawing his phone from his pocket without hesitation.

"I do. And more than forty-five seconds of them, as well," Regis confirmed.

"How long, Sire?" his attendant inquired as he hastened to find a number for Weskham on his phone. "They will want to know when to expect your return."

"Three hundred people, stretched a few minutes each is easily twelve hours." Regis did a few hasty sums in his head and it seemed about right. Somehow, in spite of the fact that he hadn't had a good night's sleep in more than six weeks, he didn't balk at twelve hours on his feet. "Tell them not to expect me until ten, at least—and that I expect Clarus will be long gone, by that time." He added the last with certain severity. Clarus had a family. He had no business sitting around waiting for Regis to return to the Citadel at all hours of the night.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Regis turned to mount the stairs. He caught Cor's eye as he stepped back, and thought he saw that hint of approval once more. It wasn't until then that Regis fully registered what he had done.

He _had_ made a decision. Bad or good, it hardly seemed to matter beyond that _he_ had done it. He hadn't hidden behind Clarus or anyone else. He had done it. And all the 'cannot's and 'impossible's crumbled away under that knowledge.

 _Can_ , he thought, conclusively, stepping past Cor and up the stairs to meet with the hospital staff.

* * *

The day proceeded predictably enough from there. Perhaps his declaration that he would be absent for twelve hours threw the Citadel into uproar, but Regis never heard about it. He met with person after person, methodically, stopping in the hall between rooms to have a hasty conference with Avunculus on the topic of whom they were to visit next. After the first hour or so they had the routine securely down. He learned names and key information from his attendant, entered to have a brief and personalized encounter with the person or persons inside the room, and moved on a few minutes later to repeat the same again.

And so it went, room by room, floor by floor, hour after hour. In each room he met new faces and heard new stories. In most there was tragedy. Many were concerned about their homes and their neighbors, their pets, their families, and their livelihoods. The only thing Regis could do was listen and assure them that everything that could be done was being done. At the very least he could offer the comfort that their jobs were secure.

It was impossible to fit 300 faces, names, and stories into his head and keep them there. Regis had begun the day with the knowledge that, at the end of it, it wouldn't remember a large percentage of the people he had spoken to in the twelve hours that followed. But there were, inevitably, a few who stuck with him.

"Spero Perdita," Avunculus said as they paused outside yet another room. The day was drawing on toward close; outside the windows the sun had already set and only the city lights illuminated the world. Regis couldn't even remember the name of the last person he had spoken to, but he told himself that just made his job of remembering this one easier. He only needed to keep the name for two minutes, anyway.

"He works in a Phoenix Incorporated warehouse, and, given the severity of his symptoms, his doctors believe he was very close to the dumping itself. He was one of the first admitted, along with his wife, Elaisse," Avunculus said, reading from the ledger in his hands.

One of Phoenix's own casualties, then. Regis wondered if his proximity to the dumping meant he knew more about the disposal than others.

"And his wife?" Regis asked.

Avunculus traced his finger down the column of printed text in his book. "Deceased. It seems she never recovered from the exposure."

Regis' stomach lurched uncomfortably. Nine hours and he had been doing remarkably well at not letting his mind dwell on Aulea. Now it seemed unavoidable. Behind the next door was a man who held all the same tragedies he had seen in every room before… plus another that he, himself, had been struggling with for almost two months.

"Sire?" Avunculus prompted. "Would you prefer not to see him?"

"No, I will see him," Regis said, blinking himself out of his reverie and steeling himself for the encounter. As of yet there was no way to tell just what he would find waiting on the other side of the door. People handled grief in all different sorts of ways. All he could do was brace for the worst and hope that he didn't find what he feared most: himself.

He gave a nod to Avunculus and the door opened.

Inside was a room much like the hundreds of others that Regis had seen that day: whitewashed walls, white tiled floors, a few curtains for privacy, and a lingering odor of rubbing alcohol. Overhead the vents hissed as the air purifiers worked. Beside the bed, a monitor beeped a regular heartbeat and in the bed itself lay a man who was, all things considered, exceptionally ordinary.

Or so Regis thought, at first glance.

Spero Perdita lay with his mechanized bed in the full recline position so that he could stare up at the ceiling—which was uninteresting and white, like the rest of the room. There was no focus in his eyes, but it was the sort of unseeing gaze that Regis expected from someone like himself. He expected it was much how he looked, when visions of Aulea danced, uninvited, before his eyes. It was a chilling thought. Was that was his people saw when he sat in court? What his council saw every time he lost focus?

Aside from that, Spero was clearly in worse shape than most of the others Regis had seen. While many sported some scaring or the remnants of an angry red rash, this man still wore bandages. They covered, as far Regis could tell, the vast majority of his body. They wrapped around his neck and could be seen beneath the front of his hospital dressing gown. What little was visible of his arms beneath the sleeves were also bandaged, and his hands as well. All that was spared was his face, and even then there were several patches of raw skin that glistened in the light, like a clear salve had been applied over them.

The king stepped fully into the room with Cor at his heel. As Spero persisted in that unmoving, unfocused state, his fears heightened; he _would_ find himself in this man and he had no idea what to say. He had been given six weeks of time and he still hadn't thought of anything he could tell himself that would make anything better.

Anyone else might have wondered if it was right to bring up the late wife at all—that perhaps Spero wasn't even thinking of her, but something else altogether—but Regis knew better. That look on the young man's face was the same look as _he_ wore. Spero was thinking of his wife, without any shadow of a doubt.

Regis thought of all the things he had been told, the words that his friends had given him in hopes of helping in one way or another. None of them fit. Hell, none of them worked for him, why would he try to inflict them on someone else?

 _Make a decision,_ he told himself. _Any decision._

"Mr Perdita," Regis began, pausing just a few feet from the bed, whose occupant lay unmoving still. "I daresay nothing I can say will make anything better. All I can offer are my most sincere condolences for your loss."

There was a tense moment of unrecognition. Regis had made a choice, but it had no guarantee of being the right choice, or even the best one given the circumstances. Was he just speaking into the void? How far lost was this poor man?

Regis shifted uncomfortably. He shouldn't have come in. In all likelihood, this man, much like himself, would have preferred to be left alone. Best that he turn back now and give up hope of somehow fixing himself by facing himself. He had tried and he had failed, but one cannot fix death.

The king prepared to excuse himself with an apology and withdraw, but then Spero moved and all fears of meeting himself vanished.

As did all belief that the other man was in any way ordinary.

His eyes flicked first, the rest of him remaining unmoving for an instant. Then his head turned. It wasn't the slow, unfocused change of a man who was still lost in thought. His gaze didn't drift again once it had found Regis, as the king's often did when he forced himself to focus. This was something else. It was a sharp, perspicacious gaze that left Regis wondering if he hadn't been wrong about every surmise he had so far made.

"Is that what they told you, Your Majesty, when the queen died?" His tone wasn't hollow and empty like Regis had expected. It was dry and dark, like he hadn't so much disassociated from the world as he found himself stuck squarely in a life that no longer had light or color.

"No…" Regis admitted. "I was told to… mourn sensibly, eat my vegetables, and do my duty."

Spero smiled, an expression completely devoid of warmth.

"Mourn her _sensibly?_ " He laughed. It was an unsettling sound: a humorless scrape in Spero's throat, which caught and gave way to a fit of coughing. "What does that even mean?" he managed, before the cough took over.

He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over, covering his mouth with the other bandaged hand as the coughing fit racked his body.

There was a pitcher of water on the side table near Spero's bed and Regis stepped forward to pour him a glass; he took it with wordless thanks and managed to swallow a few mouthfuls to stem the flow of coughs. When he dropped his hand back to the bed, there was a crimson stain on the bandage where he had covered his mouth.

"Forgive me for not standing, Your Majesty," Spero rasped, setting his water aside when he could speak once more. "I'm afraid you've caught me at something less than my best."

Spero shot him another twisting smile and Regis blinked, taken aback. They said grief did strange things to people, but Regis wasn't altogether certain how Spero had been before.

"Of course," Regis said, tucking away his curiosity and—if truth be told—building concern. "There is no need for formality, here. This is merely a social visit."

Spero gestured toward the pair of chairs that sat along the wall and hit the controls to hoist his mechanized bed into a half-upright position. Regis sat, thankful to be off his feet if only for a few minutes.

"It is worse than what I've gotten," Spero said, reaching for his water again. "You're right, though. Nothing makes it better. I appreciate someone finally admitting it." He lifted his glass in an ironic salut and took another along drink before gasping and leaning back into his pillows, his eyes shut. "I think, most likely, I will just die right here in this bed without ever really facing it." He opened his eyes once more to look at Regis and there was another smile on his lips. It was all the more unsettling for the fact that he said the words so earnestly—almost cheerfully. "That would be nice."

Regis shifted in his chair. It would have been a lie to claim he had never had similar thoughts, but there was little of seriousness about them. He had his duty, after all, and his brothers. None of those could be left behind lightly. There was something about the way Spero said it, though, that made it sound much more real.

"Are there friends or relatives for you, at home? People that you might stay with when you are discharged?" The king asked.

Spero considered him with that searching gaze. "Such confidence that I'll make it so far!"

"I have the utmost confidence in my kingdom's doctors," Regis said.

"Oh, as do I," Spero agreed. He was smiling again. "Any dying man they might save. But not a dead one."

A chill ran up Regis' spine. He wasn't sure if it was the words or the smile that did it, but Spero continued without letting him dwell.

"There are plenty of friends awaiting my return out there." He jerked his head toward the window, listless once more. "But they were _our_ friends, if you understand."

Of course. People who had known the two of them together. People who understood and therefore, somehow, understood nothing at all, just like Clarus and Weskham.

"I understand," said Regis.

Spero gave a single nod. "I expect you do. You have them, too."

They were quiet for a moment. Regis was acutely aware that he only had so much time with each person, that he needed to pull himself away and carry on, but something held him back. He felt compelled to give the other man _something_ to hold onto. Some reason to go home and not die in a hospital bed.

"What did you do before?" Regis asked. He had his duty. What was it that kept Spero alive?

"I worked in a packing warehouse, moving boxes for a company that would ultimately cause my timely demise," Spero said with mock cheer.

He certainly didn't look as if he could have moved much. Standing, Regis expected Spero would have been fairly tall, but he was also uncannily slender. Or was that the result of a month in a bed, wasting away?

"I mean for enjoyment," Regis pressed.

"I wrote novels. Well. I say _novels_. Really it was only just the one, and I never did finish it." He said it like his chances to do so were already gone.

That was it. A faint glimmer of hope.

"I should like to read it, when you do complete it."

"' _When'?_ My dear King, you are an optimist!" Spero laughed, that same, unamused, terrible laugh as before.

"I have been called many things during my still-short reign, but optimist is not one," Regis said, rising to his feet with a groan. His legs were beginning to protest the unusual treatment.

"Excellent," Spero said. "I did always like to be the first at things."

In spite of himself, Regis smiled. What a peculiar man! Had he always been so?

"Sire." Avunculus was beckoning him, again.

Regis sighed.

"Duty calls, Your Majesty," Spero said, his eyes flicking toward the attendant, before settling back on the king. "Do say 'hi' to your queen for me, won't you?"

Regis paused, caught off-guard for the umpteenth time in their short conversation. Everyone knew that Aulea was dead. In those few minutes they had shared, it had seemed clear that Spero did, as well. Until then.

"Sire," Avunculus said again.

Regis nodded to him, taking a step toward the door. He paused before stepping outside. "I mean what I say about your book."

"And I about your wife," Spero said, eyes sparkling with something dark. "You should talk to her, you know."

 _You should talk to her._

It was those words, among all he had heard that day, that replayed in his head as he sat down in his study that night and poured himself a stiff drink. They sat with him all night, much like Weskham, and time and time again they came back to him in the days and weeks that followed.

However stupid it sounded, he couldn't stop thinking of them, like they were some sort of missing wisdom that he had been grasping for all along, and he just had to puzzle out the meaning.

* * *

 **Poll time! There are just two OCs of any importance in part 1 of this story: Crea and Spero (they're necessary, since we don't know enough about canon characters inside the Citadel, especially in this era, to fill in all the holes). What do you think of them? Which, if either, do you like best so far? What is your first impression of Spero?**

 **As always, thanks for reading! See you next week.**

 **PS. Do not, under any circumstances, look up what Ignis' uncle's name is in latin. Every time I mention him a laugh at how ridiculous my decision was.**


	9. A New Leaf

Seven in the morning found a very weary Clarus wondering if his council robes had grown heavier during the night as he trudged up the steps to the Citadel. He wasn't certain what he expected to find inside, that morning, but something told him it wouldn't be good. Not long after he had sent Regis out to visit hospital patients, Weskham had received a call saying that the king intended to stay all day, rather than for the few scheduled hours, and that he expected not to see Clarus when he returned. Clarus had left in time to have dinner with his family for the first time in months, but texts from Weskham confirmed that Regis hadn't returned until much later.

Cor had been no help at all. Whether he was intentionally being obtuse or he actually didn't want to respond to messages while he was working was anyone's guess. Either seemed equally likely.

The fact was that after having hardly put in a solid hour of focused work in two months, the king had worked through a straight thirteen hour day, yesterday. It _could_ have been the start of something positive. Perhaps Clarus was just being an alarmist, but he didn't like it at all.

Servants opened a pair of doors for him.

"His Majesty?" Clarus inquired, following a nod of thanks.

"His study, Master Amicitia."

"Thank you." Clarus didn't linger; he made straight for the room in question. There was nothing odd about finding Regis in his office at this time of day because he often still slept there. And ate there, now that Clarus considered. Had he even been in the dining hall since Aulea had passed away?

He still wasn't certain what he expected to find. An exhausted Regis picking at his breakfast while Weskham stood by, perhaps. Hopefully nothing worse—though his imagination could produce half a dozen worse scenarios in an instant. All of them, however, were nothing to what he actually found behind the open door of the king's study.

"Ah, good, you have arrived." Regis looked up as he entered, shuffling a batch of papers around his desk and stacking them neatly to one side. "We need to fit in a Crownsguard meeting prior to court. I require the intelligence from Niflheim before we meet with the ruling council this afternoon, and there are simply no other gaps. Can you be ready in, say, fifteen minutes?"

Clarus blinked at his friend. For a moment it was like stepping back in time. Was the year really 736? Or had it become 730 again while he wasn't looking?

If he squinted, he could almost believe it.

Weskham was standing to one side of the king's desk, flipping through a stack of letters and sorting them into two piles. Behind Regis' chair and to his left stood Cor.

Regis didn't look six years younger—time wore on him more heavily than it did on the rest of them—but he _did_ look better… didn't he? Not as tired as Clarus had expected, at the very least. His eyes were sharp and focused. He was tidy, without a hair out of place, his suit perfectly pressed, his beard closely trimmed, and his crown sat well behind his right ear. Clarus could almost fool himself into believing he was younger.

But there were a few things that were not quite right, still.

There were still dark circles under the king's eyes from lack of sleep. His bespoke suit fit a little more loosely still from too many weeks of scarcely eating. Those he could have written off: of course they wouldn't change over night, even if other things had. But the fact that his breakfast tray was sitting on the coffee table, practically untouched meant some things weren't any better.

Still. Clarsul was probably just being fretful. Surely any change for the better was a good change.

"I am at your disposal, Your Majesty," Clarus said, managing with only the barest hint of uncertainty.

"Excellent. Cor, have your people ready by then—not here… it is rather a mess," he cast his eyes over the room, pausing for a moment in his desk organization. It certainly looked like the king had been living out of his study for weeks. Probably because he had. "The small conference room on the fifth floor should suffice."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Cor said, giving a short bow before heading to the door.

As Cor passed, Clarus shot him a curious glance. He looked infuriatingly smug. Just what had happened the day before, when Clarus had left them alone together?

"Weskham, will you have someone in here to tidy up?" Regis asked, rising from his chair as he settled the last stack of papers on his desk.

"Yes, Sire."

"I will see to those letters later today—leave them here when you are through. Have you scheduled time for the last of the hospital visitations, yet?" Regis spoke with a sort of fervency that had been missing from him all these weeks. Clarus hadn't realized how much he missed it until then. As much as he wanted leap for joy, to embrace his friend and celebrate his return, something held him back. Grief didn't disappear overnight. The appearance of having done so, however, seemed to spell trouble.

"Not yet, Sire," said Weskham.

"Well do that today, as well," Regis said, stepping away from his desk. He caught Clarus' eye as he turned toward the door. "Ready to face the war council, my old friend?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Clarus said.

"That is all I can ask," Regis said, clapping his shoulder and moving past him. He swept into the hallway without waiting, trusting that Clarus would follow.

Clarus lingered a moment, throwing Weskham a curious look. Weskham simply shook his head, his meaning clear enough without words: _you know as much as I._

* * *

Regis continued to surprise Clarus all day. He took the lead during their meeting with the Crownsguard, never once looking to Clarus, never once faltering. During court—and later during council—there was healthy discourse in all directions with the king taking his rightful place at the head.

Clarus wasn't the only person surprised by the change. He saw it on all the faces of his fellow councillors, in the crownsguards they met with in the morning, and even in a few passing servants. No one else seemed concerned that the apparent return of the king's usual mentality could have indicated a change for the worse.

He didn't slow down as time wore on, either, in spite of the long day he'd had at the hospital before. He took a working lunch at his desk—though he ate about as much as was usual, lately—before they returned to court. When council concluded that evening, Regis returned to his study with Clarus and Cor at his heel.

Weskham was already there.

"Tomorrow's schedule is on your desk for approval, Sire," Weskham said with a bow as they entered.

"Thank you, Weskham," Regis said, dropping into his chair to look over the paper laid in the middle of his desk. His eyes skimmed the column of words, flicking this way and that before he gave a short nod. "This is all good. Have the court scribes forwarded the drafted disability law, yet?"

"Yes, Sire, it's there," Weskham pointed to a stack of papers tied together with twine and stacked neatly in the corner of Regis' desk.

"Perfect. I shall read it tonight," he said, pulling it toward himself with no indication that he realized—or cared—it would be a multiple-hour job. "Clarus, you should be off. Your family is doubtless awaiting your return."

In fact, Clarus had been lingering on purpose, hoping to have a word with Weskham and—if opportunity allowed—Cor as well. After a long day, he was growing more assured that his instincts were right. Something was wrong with Regis—however it may have appeared on the outside.

"Your Majesty," Clarus interrupted, then thought better of the title. "Regis. Take a break. When was the last time you saw your children?"

That _did_ give the king pause.

He set down the drafted bill on his desk and looked up at Clarus. For the first time, a hint of something tired flashed across his face.

"Not since yesterday," he admitted, his tone much more subdued than the high-energy pace he had set all day.

"You should see them. The bill will wait," Clarus pushed gently, only half because he wanted Regis out of the room. The other half was because he still believed those kids were the best thing for him.

"Yes…" Regis sighed, running one hand over his hair, encountering his crown, and removing it. "Yes, I ought to see them."

He set his crown on his desk and rose from his chair. "But I expect you to be gone when I return."

"I will be. Goodnight, Regis," Clarus said as Regis passed him in the doorway.

With the king gone, Clarus turned back to the other two. He stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind himself.

"What happened, yesterday, Cor?" Clarus asked.

"I told him to make a decision. He did." Cor said, as if it was as simple as that.

"That's it? You told him to make a decisions, and he's magically obsessed with work?" Clarus asked, forcing himself to keep his tone level. It wouldn't do for the servants outside to hear the king's closest advisors having a heated discussion about His Majesty.

"I pushed him to stand on his own two feet, rather than allowing him to hide behind me like a terrified child," Cor said. "Perhaps if you both hadn't been coddling him for two months then he wouldn't have been floundering for so long."

"So you're going to stand there and tell me you've done nothing wrong?" Clarus demanded, clenching his fists.

"I have done him a considerable service," Cor said.

"Weskham, tell me you see what I see," Clarus rounded on Wes for an ally.

Weskham removed his monocle, cleaned it on a square of fabric from his pocket, and replaced it.

"I believe Clarus is right, Cor," Weskham said at length. "Regis has always been devoted to his duty; that has never been the problem. Now I fear he will use it as a shield. If he continues to work himself as he has done these past two days, it will take its toll on his health."

Cor made a sound of impatience. "Would it cause you physical pain to admit that the two of you have been too permissive?"

"We have been _trying_ to encourage Regis to face his grief," Clarus said with an air of forced calm. "Now it seems he may ignore it entirely."

"Admittedly," Weskham said. "We have not been overwhelmingly successful."

"Perhaps he has dealt with his grief." Cor folded his arms over his chest. "It just didn't include pouring his heart out."

Clarus caught Weskhams gaze across the room. He didn't believe it was true, but if Weskham thought it was possible….

The steward gave a half-shrug. "Either way, our choices are few. You might try to reason with him, Clarus, but I doubt it will have much effect. You know how stubborn he can be."

"So what's the alternative? Wait until he wears holes in himself?" Clarus asked, gesturing toward the shut door. "Shall we take bets on how long he'll last under eighteen hour days without eating or sleeping, and the weight of the ring on top of it all?"

"I'm astounded by your faith in our king's strength," Cor said dryly, cutting like he only was with Clarus.

"I do not doubt Regis' strength," Clarus growled, reminding himself once again to keep his voice down. "I merely have a realistic understanding of how heavy the burden he bears is."

Weskham cleared his throat. "The alternative _is_ to wait," he said, stopping short their argument with his rolling voice. "Only time will tell how he behaves in the future. It should be clear early enough whether or not this new—I hesitate to call it mania, and yet that is what it resembles—this new stage will have an adverse effect on his health. At that intermediate stage, we might intervene as necessary. If it proves unnecessary then we need only keep watching and remain—as always—at his side, ready to assist in whatever way he needs us."

There was no objecting to Weskham's calm logic. So they adjourned and made ready to assist.

In whatever way he needed them.


	10. A Change of Leadership

He had to keep moving because if he didn't, everything would come crashing down.

Three weeks ago, Cor had showed him that he _could_ think, _could_ act, and didn't have to suffer the indignance of being an impotent king any longer. That had given him the boost he needed to vault back into the throne, but it didn't take away the pain. All the loss and emptiness was still there. He was just able to distract himself from it, now. In the dark of night, after Clarus went home and Cor and Weskham both retired, the ghosts came back to haunt him.

At night he thought of the words that Spero Perdita had said to him in that hospital room.

 _You should talk to her, you know._

Some nights it seemed like there was something hiding underneath them, something he couldn't quite grasp. He had walked into that hospital room expecting to offer Spero consolation on the death of his wife. He had never thought he might find some sort of hidden wisdom there, and yet…

Other nights he thought Spero must simply be mad.

Talk to her. She was dead and no amount of deluding himself was going to bring her back.

He still couldn't face his bedroom. The truth was, he feared that if he let himself think of her then he would be sucked back into that blackness that had taken up two months of his life. He just wanted to _live_. But somehow it found him, anyway, in those quiet nights.

There were only a few things he could do to abate the pain, on those nights. Sometimes, when he was running on three hours of sleep for the fifth day in a row and hadn't stopped working since before dawn, he managed to fall asleep. But in between he was forced to resort to other measures. Sometimes it was a bottle of scotch. Sometimes, as this night, it was a trek upstairs to the nursery where he could sometimes lose himself in the chaos of trying to convince two five-month-old babies to go back to sleep.

Regis shut off the lights in his study and left the room. Outside, he gained a shadow. Weskham had gone to bed already—a fact that Regis wasn't certain whether or not he should be thankful for—but in his place he had left Avun to watch the king. Regis didn't object to the company, though he didn't say anything one way or the other. They just walked in silence upstairs to the nursery.

The twins hadn't been sleeping well, recently—taking after their father already—but that night Regis found the nursery silent.

He hid his disappointment—most parents would have been thrilled to find their children asleep in the middle of the night after weeks of struggle, but for him it meant no interaction—though it was soon distracted by another anomaly.

Instead of finding Crea seated in her chair, taking advantage of the quiet moment to read her book, he found her pacing the length of the room with agitated strides. She looked up when he entered.

"Good, you're here. I was beginning to worry I would have to go looking for you in the morning." She stopped pacing, but spoke in a low whisper to keep from rousing the children.

"What is it?" He asked, stepping fully into the room and mirroring her tone.

"It's nothing catastrophic, but… enough to cause some concern." She pulled at the front of her shirt before stopping herself and meeting his gaze. "I don't like the way Mistress Dyana handles the prince and princess. You recall how much trouble we've been having getting them to sleep, recently?" Regis indicated that he did. "It's because of the naps, like I said. They're growing out of the last nap, but because their sleep cycle is so messed up, they won't fall asleep at night. They're just too overtired by that time. So when we finally _do_ get them to sleep, they don't get nearly enough and it's just this cycle of tired babies. Well, on top of that, she's said that if they won't go down at night it's because they're having too many naps. She told the day nurses to only put them down for two."

"I thought you said they needed three," Regis said, brow furrowing. He rested his arm across the back of the armchair he usually occupied, looking as unsettled as he felt.

"They do. So now they're even more tired. Somehow we managed to get them both down early tonight—I came in before my shift and convinced the evening nurses to help. Mistress Dyana will probably find out about that by tomorrow," Crea said, sounding mostly unconcerned about the fact. Her offhand tone persisted, in spite of her words: "Likely she'll have me dismissed before the week is through, so I wanted to tell you before there wasn't a chance."

Regis blinked, taken aback. In the few months that he had come to know her, Crea had earned his trust. Now he found himself more assured than ever that this trust wasn't misplaced. She told him she would be dismissed and wanted to inform him on the policies so that he could change them in her absence. She didn't ask him to prevent her dismissal—indeed, she seemed not to think of it beyond that it would mean she couldn't help the prince and princess any longer.

The king glanced outside the open door, where his attendant was standing in the hall.

"Avun." He motioned as he moved to fold into the armchair, steepling his fingers. "I need you to deliver a note."

Avunculus stepped fully into the room, drawing a notepad and pen from his pocket, holding them at the ready.

"To Helena Lionward," Regis dictated, "Dismiss Mistress Dyana from the nursery staff and ensure she never rejoins the Citadel. In her place, instate Creare Vinculum as head of nursery and nanny to the prince and princess."

Across the room he spotted the look of shock that settled on Crea's face. She didn't make any objection, perhaps because her train of thought had derailed or perhaps because she had none. Either way, Avunculus finished writing and Regis gave him a short nod, receiving the pen and paper to sign the bottom before dispatching his messenger.

When they were alone once more, Crea managed to track down her voice again.

"Your Majesty—I've never been in charge of anything in my life!"

"I beg to differ. You are in charge of the two most important people in my life every night." He stepped forward and sank into the armchair.

"That's different!" She tugged a lock of her blonde hair and resumed her pacing, ignoring his teasing quip.

Regis leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. "Crea, please desist."

She stopped moving. He opened his eyes to find her demurred and felt immediately guilty. With a sigh, he motioned her forward, sitting up and taking her hands in his when she stopped in front of him.

"To this point I have been forced to rely upon the judgement of others to determine what—and who—is best for my children. Still I know little of the what, but the who I can now decide with little hesitation. It matters to me little whether your have ever been in charge of others—children or otherwise. What is important is this: you care for my children. Not due to any sense of obligation, but rather because you love them. You also have a keen understanding of growth and development and how best to see to their needs. If you did not, I expect you would soon learn because you love them. Because you are intelligent and perceptive and you want the best for these children and that—that is what I need." He looked levelly up at her throughout, speaking emphatically, earnestly, from the bottom of his heart. "I trust you, Crea. And I need someone who I can trust to care for my children, because I cannot do it on my own."

There was still a shell-shocked sort of look on her face, but it was more surprise than anxiety, this time. For a moment she just stared at him. Then she shut her mouth with a snap, swallowed hard, and put a few words together.

"If that's what you want then… I won't disappoint you."

"I know." He gave her a little smile, squeezing her hands before releasing them. "It will mean more work for you—but please send word once you have decided when you will be with them, so that I might adjust my schedule, as best I am able."

"Of course. I will," she said hurriedly. "Thank you… Your Majesty."

"Thank _you,_ Nanny Vinculum."

* * *

The following day was tiring, just as the day before had been, and the day before that as well. Regis didn't allow himself the luxury of dragging. If he showed weakness then everything would come crashing down once more.

Clarus didn't understand. He followed Regis, just one of the many shadows that dogged him, and looked daggers at Cor. Regis was too tired to find out what was going on between them. He was too tired to care about much at all.

In the moments between court and council, he returned to his study, his faithful Shield and lion trailing behind him. Weskham awaited them. It was impossible to tell what the third member of his entourage thought of the feud between the other two; Weskham was always so composed and he rarely offered his unsolicited opinion on personal matters. It was just as well. While he might have hovered, he at least didn't fuss like Clarus.

"A message for you from the nursery, Sire," Weskham said, motioning to the king's desk.

Regis raised an eyebrow and sat, lifting the paper and skimming his eyes over it. He smiled tightly; not amused, but satisfied. In everything else, he had nearly forgotten; Crea had delivered, just as requested, not only the new schedule for nursemaids, but also a carefully detailed plan for fixing the mistakes of his previous nanny.

Attached to the back and scrawled on a scrap of paper was a note from Crea herself:

 _Noctis has his first tooth._

He smiled. A real smile, this time.

"Regis? Did you hear me?"

Regis looked up to find Clarus looked at him. He had been speaking, hadn't he?

"No, Clarus, I fear not," the king admitted, setting aside the notes from Crea and leaning back in his chair to look up at his Shield.

"I said: you really ought to take a break."

Regis shook his head. "There is no time, Clarus," he sat back up and reached for the next stack of papers on his desk. There was always more work to be done but, truthfully, that wasn't what he really meant.

"Regis…" Clarus took a step forward, his voice growing softer as his hand fell on Regis' shoulder. "You cannot go on like this forever."

Regis looked up at him once more. It did no good to see the concern on Clarus' face, but Clarus didn't understand at all. What was Regis going to tell him? That if he stopped running, even if for a second, Aulea's ghost would catch up with him?

"This time you are wrong, my friend." Regis shook his head, looking away. "This is the only way I _can_ go on."

Clarus sighed. Regis didn't see the look he exchanged with Weskham, but if he had, he wouldn't have been surprised.

"Go see your children, then," Clarus said at length.

A clever change of tactic. Clarus knew that was the one way to get him to stop working. It remained, still, the only thing he could do that made him feel properly whole.

"We have an hour before the council convenes," Clarus pressed, leaning forward to look at Regis' face. "Go and see Noctis' first tooth."

Regis glanced toward the note that he had set aside, which Clarus must have read over his shoulder. It was a tempting proposition. One he couldn't hold against.

"Very well," Regis said at last, rising from his chair. It didn't take much coaxing to get him to put down work for the sake of his children.

Cor followed him upstairs to the nursery, leaving Clarus and Weskham to discuss whatever they would in the king's absence. Cor offered up no unsolicited opinions, neither about Clarus nor Regis' behavior, on the way to the nursery and Regis didn't ask for them. Cor knew, among other things, when to keep his mouth shut and for that Regis was grateful. He was doing as well as he could. If there were any other expectations he wasn't meeting, he didn't want to know, just then.

They found the little prince and princess awake and active when they reached the nursery, presided over by two nursemaids.

"Your Majesty." The nurses bobbed respectfully when he entered.

"Crea—that is to say, Mistress Vinculum—isn't here, right now," said the first nurse.

"She left just a few hours ago," added the second.

"That is quite alright," Regis said, lifting a hand to quiet them. If Crea had only just left a few hours ago, he expected it was to get some well-deserved rest. Though he appreciated her calm presence, it wasn't necessary for her to be there in order for him to see his children. "I have merely come to visit."

Reina and Noctis were both situated on a play mat on the floor; Regis knelt amongst the toys, ignoring the protest of his stiff muscles. Big blue eyes turned up toward him as the prince followed the motion. Regis smiled. How could he not? Noctis looked at him with those eyes, his sweet little cheeks rounded and soft lips parted to reveal the crown of a single tooth on the bottom.

"Good evening, Little Prince." Regis brushed his son's cheek with one knuckle. "Is that your first tooth I spy?"

Noctis babbled a long, repetitive stream of consonants. It didn't mean anything to Regis, but two feet away Reina responded in an equally unintelligible language. Regis' smile deepened. He would never tire of hearing it. Perhaps some parents had the luxury of wishing their children would shut up; Regis didn't expect he would ever get to.

He tweaked his son's chin, smiling at the drooling baby. His first tooth already! Why, they had only been born five months ago.

Five months. Had it really been so long? Nearly half that time he had been without Aulea.

Regis pushed the pain aside, refocusing on his children as Noctis resolutely tried to fit a block thrice the size of his fist into his mouth.

"And you, Little Princess?" He asked, leaning forward to get a look at his daughter.

She fixed him with her endless gaze, considering for a moment, before she smiled at him. It was just as toothless as it had been every day before. No hint of white caps in her little mouth.

"Will hers come, soon, as well?" Regis asked, turning to look at the nursemaids, who were still hovering nearby.

"I expect so, Your Majesty," the first said. "Since they're twins and all."

Regis looked back at his children as Reina grasped at his knee and wriggled closer. He gave no objection even as she moved her second hand from her mouth directly to his pant leg and used it to drag herself forward. Her half-mumbled muttering continued, though it had taken on a discontented tone.

"Not much longer, my dear," Regis said dotingly; he smoothed one hand over her feather-fine hair and slipped his hands underneath her arms to lift her up. "You shall have to crawl soon, else Noctis will beat you to it. After that walking and talking…"

She babbled at him reproachfully, as if to inform him that she was _already_ talking. Just because he didn't understand it…

Regis smiled, holding her up at eye level. They were growing up so quick. The next stages would happen faster than he wanted to admit. A part of him wanted to shut them both away and hope they wouldn't grow up at all if he confined them. But that was foolish and, besides, the other half of him couldn't wait to meet the people they would grow into. He couldn't wait to teach them words and tell them stories, to wallpaper his study with their artwork, to hear their tall tales and make up silly games with them.

"Yes, quite soon you'll both be unstoppable," Regis told his daughter, setting her back down so her feet rested on the floor, though he held her upright, still. "You aren't going to let Noctis beat you to walking, are you? He's already gotten his tooth, first."

Reina made a sharp, monosyllabic sound, which Noctis repeated as he smashed two blocks together.

"I fear I have instigated something terrible," Regis sighed, sitting Reina back down beside her twin.

Surely they didn't need his help to develop their own sibling rivalry. Soon enough they would be at each other's throats. For now, he should just be happy that they hardly acknowledged the others existence.

It was a peace that was doomed not to last.


	11. Sour Disposition

They were at it, again. Weskham could hear them halfway down the hall and he was willing to bet that a large percentage of the Citadel staff was aware, by now, as well. For all that people liked to ignore them, the servants were sharply observant. No one knew that fact better than the steward.

"He is _not_ well. You can hardly go on denying that indefinitely!" Clarus' voice was clear, even with the door shut and several yards between Weskham and the room they were shut up inside, as was the vitriol in his tone.

"He is getting by and keeping up with his duty; what else would you ask for, Clarus?" Cor didn't raise his voice so much as he sharpened it and struck with deadly precision.

"I ask you to _stop pushing him_. He needs time. He still hasn't come to terms with Aulea's death."

"He's handling it as well as can be expected. He's moving on and making progress, as he should."

"He's not _moving on_ , Gods damn it! He's hiding from it!"

Weskham pushed the door open and slipped inside, shutting it behind him. "If I might suggest we hold this discussion at a somewhat lower volume. The servants in the hall are beginning to look concerned and, while I do not believe any of them will take this back to His Majesty, some conversations are meant to remain private."

Cor and Clarus exchanged a venomous look, but both dropped their voices when talk resumed. It would have been easy for those who overheard to misunderstand the situation. The King's Shield and the Marshall of the Crownsguard at each other's throats certainly made for good gossip, but hints of unrest among the king's closest companions lead to uneasiness in the Capitol. The fact was that Clarus and Cor had always carried on a rivalry of sorts. Recently it had settled into a more peaceful sort of understanding, but this business with Regis' behavior was bringing up old grievances.

Clarus had been the king's sworn Shield more or less since birth. The two of them had grown up knowing they would have that place side-by-side and while, like any brothers, they had their disagreements, Clarus was utterly devoted to his then-prince.

Cor hadn't come into the picture until much later, after Regis' retinue had travelled to Accordo and back. On the battlefront, when the war with Niflheim stirred up once more, King Mors' young bodyguard had joined Regis' escort at the former's request. Cor was a prodigy with a blade, more skilled at fifteen than anyone else King Mors had on hand to send and safeguard his heir. It might have been fine, if Regis hadn't already had a devoted guard of his own.

Needless to say, the headstrong fifteen year old had clashed with the twenty-five year old Shield. More than once, Weskham had thought Regis' own retinue was more likely to kill him than the imperials were.

Ten years had cooled tempers and soothed jealousies, and yet they were fighting over Regis behind his back once more.

"He's going to crash. We must do something while there's still a chance to head it off," Clarus said, passing a hand through his thinning hair as his eyes flicked between Cor and Weskham.

"Regis will make his own choices. It's not up to either of us to decide how he handles himself," Cor retorted, though he, also, looked at Weskham.

Weskham folded his arms over his chest and looked at the pair of them. Ten years and they still bickered like children while he played Mother. How had this happened?

"It is our job, not to make decisions for him, but to help him in making a well-informed decision when he is blinded by nearsightedness. I agree with Clarus," Weskham said, ignoring the flinch of annoyance that crossed Cor's face. "Regis is making good decisions for his kingdom and poor decisions for himself. While his duty is important, he can hardly do that if his health doesn't hold out."

"His health is fine," Cor dismissed. "He's not an old man."

"Careful, Cor," Clarus drawled. "Your youth is showing."

Cor, wisely, chose not to dignify Clarus' quip with a response.

"Whatever we may like to believe, Regis is far from invincible," Weskham said. "You're right; he is still young, and after six—nearly seven—years, he's tolerating the weight of the ring very well. But even a man in his prime can only keep on at this pace for so long before it takes its toll. Do not fool yourself: Regis will fall if we let him. So let us dispense with the bickering and admit that none of us want that."

After a tense silence, in which Cor and Clarus exchanged yet another scathing look, they both finally agreed.

"So what do you propose we do, then?" Cor asked.

That was the root of the problem. Even if they all agreed there was one, they couldn't agree on the method to addressing it. Cor wanted to solve things the same way they had begun: by beating some sense into the king. Weskham was more inclined to go the opposite route: with gentle care and, perhaps, a quiet discussion. Clarus fell somewhere in between the two and, in the end, their impromptu meeting adjourned without any conclusion being reached.

They reached the king's study only shortly after the king himself.

He looked wane. There were dark circles under his eyes, his clothes hung more loosely than they should have, and his cheeks had taken on a waxy, hollow appearance. Clarus was right; they needed to do something.

Under normal circumstances, Regis would have made a comment about his three companions arriving together, but that day he just glanced at them with a tired sort of disinterest before gathering himself.

"State of Insomnia briefing in twenty minutes," Regis observed, glancing at his watch. "Weskham, where did you put that hospital correspondence that you mentioned?"

"Here, Sire," Weskham said, retrieving the small pile of letters from the corner of the king's desk and placing it in front of him. "Incidentally, there was also a message from the nursery this morning," Weskham added, remembering the note he held in his vest pocket. He drew it out and handed it to the king.

"Oh?" Regis received it, unfolding the paper and letting his eyes skim the sheet. A smile settled on his lips. It was the only time he ever smiled: when he held his children or when he had news of them.

"Is this all you ate, this morning, Regis?" Clarus asked, disapproval clear in his voice as he indicated the still-full breakfast tray that had been pushed to the side of the king's desk.

Regis spared it a passing glancing, setting down the note from his nursery staff. "Indeed."

Clarus placed his hands on the desk, leaning forward to put his eyes on a level with Regis'. "You have twenty minutes. _Eat_."

The king sighed and picked up a piece of abandoned toast. "Very well."

Weskham moved around his desk to refill the king's glass of water and glanced at the note that lay face up on the desk, now. He wasn't in the habit of snooping on Regis' private affairs, but he couldn't help his curiosity: what was it that could bring a smile to Regis' face?

The note was short: a couple lines in slanting handwriting with delicately curling letters:

 _Have you ever seen a baby eat a lemon for the first time?_

 _They're six months, today. Lunch is at noon._

Weskham smiled too, in spite of himself. He caught Clarus' eye and indicated the note, wordlessly. Clarus would make sure that Regis made it to the nursery around noon.

"Weskham, will you follow up on someone, for me?" Regis asked as Clarus covertly rounded the desk to read the note.

"Of course, Sire," Weskham said, setting the pitcher of water down.

"A man I met in Reliqua Hospital by the name of Spero Perdita. See if he has been discharged, at the very least," Regis said as he took a dutiful bite of lukewarm egg.

"I will see."

"Thank you."

"There is very little that urgently needs to be done, past the morning's meeting," Clarus said casually, once there was space in the conversation to do so. "Why not take the remainder of the day and get some rest?"

The weary look on Regis' face transformed into something sharp so quickly that Weskham missed it by blinking.

"No, Clarus," Regis said, his voice no longer familiar and cordial, but containing that steel that he usually only wielded in court. "There is no rest to be had. There cannot be."

His tone was sharp enough that even Clarus didn't push the subject farther. He just let it drop. Though, once the king had looked away, Clarus shot Weskham a wistful look.

 _I tried_ , it seemed to say.

Weskham gave him a miniscule nod. He had made an attempt. But it seemed it would take a great deal more than that to convince Regis to rest.

* * *

Six months.

Six months since that beautiful day that his wife had given birth to twins.

Half a year old, already and half of it Regis had spent in this haze of half-being. Even now, everything was dulled and foggy through the exhaustion, but that was the only way he could carry on. Nothing was as sharp as it should have been. Nothing, that was, except for his children.

"You came! I wasn't sure if you would make it." Crea welcomed him with that same smile she always wore. She held one baby on her hip and she looked natural that way. She looked unbalanced whenever she _wasn't_ holding a baby.

Noctis was doing his best to grab her bottom lip, but she deftly avoided his grasping hands and redirected his attention. Upon seeing Regis, Noctis gave a wide smile, showing off two little white teeth on the bottom front.

"My friends have begun to conspire against me," Regis said, by way of explanation. He returned Noctis' smile, brushing one finger over his son's chubby little cheek. "They read my mail and rearrange my schedule whenever you send me a summons. If they believe I have not noticed their attempts to halt my work…"

He sighed, straightening. They were all very well-meaning, he had no doubt, but they didn't understand.

"Maybe you should take the hint and have a break," Crea stated, pushing Noctis into his arms and stooping to retrieve Reina from the play mat.

"I cannot," Regis said, voice tight, as he settled Noctis on one arm.

Crea paused, considering him for a moment. "Because it's the only way you can stop thinking about her?" She asked, voice soft.

Regis swallowed hard and pursed his lips. He gave a curt nod, but didn't trust his voice to carry any words. He didn't want to talk about Aulea. He didn't want to think about Aulea, because it was a floodgate just waiting to burst.

She gave him a tight smile, but the look on her face wasn't pity, as he had come to expect from people when they mentioned—even indirectly—Aulea. It was understanding. He wondered if she had done the same thing when her mother had died and her daughter after that, but he didn't ask. He wasn't curious enough to overcome his reticence.

"Then maybe you should think about her," Crea said softly, reaching out with her free hand to grasp his forearm, briefly, before she turned toward the kitchen without waiting for a response.

Regis remained rooted to the spot for a moment. She said it like it was so simple. But he needed to work; he needed to do his duty for the sake of the whole kingdom and if he thought about Aulea he couldn't do that.

"Once they start eating solid foods regular, they'll start sleeping longer at night. They'll still be getting milk along with it for a long while, yet, but the solids will keep them full a bit longer." Crea's voice drifted out from the kitchen, picking up as if they hadn't discussed anything besides the twins, at all.

A part of him wanted to ask her how she had done it, but he was thankful that she didn't push the subject. Perhaps, someday, he would bring it up. Today he was simply too tired; all he wanted was to be with his children.

He followed her into the kitchen, giving Noctis a little smile as the baby grabbed two handfuls of his beard. Both of the twins had sharp little fingers, but he would have tolerated any amount of beard-pulling for the sake of holding them.

"You can put him there," Crea said, pointing to a new highchair on the near side of the little table.

There was a second chair on the opposite side of the table and Crea set Reina down in it without complication. She made it look so easy. Why didn't she have trouble with little feet that didn't want to go where they were meant to, or little hands grabbing hair and clothes and refusing to let go?

When Regis finally had Noctis seated and managed to free himself from both little hands, he straightened to find Crea watching him with that look that said she was trying not to laugh. She covered her mouth with one hand.

"Your crown, Your Majesty," she said, her voice miraculously even, in spite of the evident strain.

Regis put his hand to the side of his head, expecting to find his crown askew. Instead he found nothing at all.

"Where—?" His eyes landed on Noctis, who had both hands wrapped around the delicate metal horn and the round curve fixed securely between his gums. "By all the—how ever did you manage that?"

Noctis made no response but to drool on his crown. Regis sighed and left it there. Baby drool was good for silver, right?

Crea gave up on her self control. She laughed as she moved about the makeshift kitchen, making quick work of putting together lunch for the prince and princess.

"Do you really intend to give them lemon?" Regis asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down in front of Noctis.

He glanced up at Crea, who held up a slice of lemon and shot him a wicked smile. "I always deliver on my promises."

"Is this how you spend your days?" Regis asked as she returned to the table, setting down a little plate of soft foods cut into bite-sized bits. "Torturing my children?"

"Gods, you have no idea how much fun it is," Crea said, pulling out a second chair and sitting down across the table from him. "The first lemon is practically as big a milestone as walking."

She picked up a slice of lemon and passed it across the table to him. Regis took it dubiously, not certain that he wanted to inflict raw lemon on his son. She picked up a second slice and held it out for Reina, who opened her mouth to display her own brand new tooth.

"Reina will take one for the team, won't you, Sweet Pea?" Crea asked, letting the princess take a mouthful of lemon.

Regis watched. Reina gnawed at the lemon wedge for a moment before pulling back and looking at it with what could only be called a reproachful expression. She stuck her tongue out, looked up at Crea with a great furrow on her little brow, then fixed her eyes back on the lemon, distrustful. Crea laughed. In spite of himself, Regis did, too. He leaned against the table and watched his little girl open and close her mouth a few times before she leaned forward and took another bite.

The low chuckle in Regis' chest expanded into a full laugh. He could hardly believe she had gone back for more after that first look. As if that wasn't enough, she did precisely the same thing on the second taste, pulling back and glaring at the lemon as if it was the fruit's fault that it still tasted much the same.

"She likes it!" Crea said. "See. Not so bad."

Regis wasn't sure he would go so far as to claim Reina actually _liked_ the lemon, but he had to agree that it was worth it. What was a sour mouth in exchange for that wonderful expression?

"Go on." Crea nodded her head toward Noctis.

Regis looked at the lemon, then at Noct, taking the crown back from the little prince. "I apologize in advance, my son. Today I subject you to discomfort for my own amusement."

He held out the lemon. Just like Reina, Noctis opened his mouth—so innocent and trusting—and let Regis give him a bite of lemon. The little prince munched at the lemon for a moment, blissfully unaware of the flavor as it remained mostly caught between his lips, but once he had a mouthful and Regis withdrew the lemon wedge, the reaction was immediate.

His whole face screw up. His little nose wrinkled, his eyes squinted, and his tongue stuck out. He waved his little hands and took long breaths of air like he was trying to wash the taste out of his mouth that way, all the while drooling lemon juice down his shirt.

Regis threw his head back and laughed. Watching Reina look bemused and then, for some reason, try again was nothing compared to the look of utter betrayal that Noctis wore. He didn't even feel a little bit bad for subjecting his son to a mouth full of lemon.

"This is how we teach distrust," Crea said, appearing over his shoulder with a washcloth to wipe up the lemon juice and drool from Noctis' chin.

It took a moment before Regis could speak again. His stomach ached from laughing, his face hurt from the grin, but it was the best he had felt in months.

"Gods. Well and truly grateful am I that you will not remember this once you have grown up," he said, smoothing his free hand over Noctis' soft hair.

"He'll never trust you again," Crea said as she withdrew.

"Likely as not," Regis agreed, still grinning.

Noctis licked his lips and twisted his mouth, looking up at them with a deeply disturbed expression. Once the taste faded, however, the expression did as well. He was no worse for the wear.

"I should have taken a picture of that," Regis sighed. He shook his head and smiled. As much as he tried to convince himself that he would be as kind and merciful a parent as he was a king, he had no regrets.

"Perhaps, just once more?" Regis picked up a fresh slice of lemon. "Would you like some more lemon, Noct?"


	12. The Fall

Regis slept in his study, mostly. More often than not he fell asleep at his desk, pouring his last conscious moments into his work. Sometimes he was exhausted enough at the end of the day to sleep on the chaise lounge or to go upstairs and use the empty room across the hall from his. Other nights he drifted off in the nursery with a child in his arms, though that had become less common as Crea's schedule changed.

Every morning it was a little bit harder to get up.

Immediately after waking, in that realm hovering between dreams and the real world, there were a few seconds when he could forget that she was gone. Once reality set in again, the darkness loomed so he had to get up, had to force himself to his feet and find something to do so that he wouldn't think; then he worked until he _couldn't_ think.

Slowly, it was catching up with him. A naive part of him had been hoping he could keep going in this fashion, but underneath he knew Clarus was right. He couldn't run forever.

His body ached.

Just sitting up sent pain shooting up his back. Regis winced, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He ran his hands over his face and shut his eyes.

 _I could just… go back to sleep…_

It was a tempting thought and a terrible one. Even when he did sleep it wasn't restful. When he worked or when he was with his children, distractions kept his mind from Aulea, but anything else and she was there, inside his chest, crushing his empty heart.

As nice as it felt, physically, to sit down and breathe for just a moment, Regis couldn't stand the pain for long. He would rather face creaking joints and aching muscles than the emptiness in his heart. He would keep going. He had to, if he didn't want to succumb to his grief again.

He forced himself to his feet, wincing at the exertion. His knees quivered under his own weight and he was forced to put his hands on the back of the lounge to steady himself.

" _Shit_ ," he swore as he leaned against the furniture and shut his eyes. How was he supposed to work if he couldn't even stand?

"Regis?"

Weskham. Of course. Right on time.

Regis forced himself to straighten, leaving just one hand on the lounge to keep upright. He opened his eyes and retreated behind as much of his kingly mask as he could muster. If Weskham saw him like this… Then again, he probably already knew, otherwise he wouldn't have used his first name.

"Weskham. Did you find out about Spero for me?" Regis asked. His voice came out a little weaker than he would have liked and he cursed it inwardly. He still hadn't tried to take a step. Perhaps he could send Weskham out for something so that he could hobble upstairs and be changed before Clarus arrived. He hadn't yet worked out how he was going to get upstairs.

Weskham hesitated, evidently trying to decide whether or not to push the subject of why Regis needed to hold onto a chaise lounge in order to stand up.

"I… yes, Sire. He is still in the hospital, but the doctors say his condition is much improved. They expect to see him released within the next week or two," Weskham said at last, still hovering uncertainly by the door.

"Thank you," Regis breathed, shifting his other hand to the back of the lounge and wondering if he dared let go.

"Your Majesty—Regis… are you alright?" Weskham took a tentative step forward.

Regis halted him with one raised hand. "I am fine," he said as sharply as he was able. "Please. Go see to it that breakfast is prepared. I will be upstairs." Somehow.

Weskham hesitated again. He, doubtless, knew that Regis was lying; he just wasn't sure whether or not to call it out. At last he complied with the order, as Regis had guessed he would.

"Of course, Sire…. But if you should need anything…"

Regis didn't respond so Weskham left it there. He withdrew, leaving the king to put himself back together on his own. That was Weskham. Obedient to a fault because he was certain that pushing would only make it worse. If it had been Clarus, Regis would have had no end to trouble. It would have made his morning that much more difficult. Thankfully, Clarus hadn't arrived, yet. Now all he had to do was make it upstairs before his Shield _did_ arrive.

It was easier said than done.

There was nothing between the lounge and the door: no furniture he could hold onto if his steps faltered, nothing to aid him in walking. If he wanted out then he had to trust in his out strength.

He pushed his back straight, wincing at the pain between his shoulder blades, and released the lounge. His legs held his weight on their own and he managed to maintain his balance well enough. He took a first step toward the door, but was forced to limp on the right as pain caught in his knee. That had been building for a few days, as well. Last night it hadn't wanted to straighten out all the way; today putting weight on it made it feel like he was kneeling on needles.

Though he made it to the door in this manner, his posture slipped with every step. He ended up bent double, leaning against the wall beside the door to his study with his eyes shut and a permanent grimace on his face.

Why did it _hurt_ so much?

He didn't open the door. There was no way he was going to reach the room upstairs like this. He just held onto the wall and waited for what he knew would come. All he wanted was to lay down somewhere and go back to sleep, but that was also what he dreaded most. Clarus would make him face it, when he arrived, anyway.

* * *

"Clarus."

Something about Weskham's voice brought him to an immediate halt in the entry hall. Weskham never came looking for him so early in the morning and, by the face Weskham wore, Clarus had no doubt that he _had_ been looking.

"I don't think he's going to make it through the day."

Clarus didn't need to ask what he was talking about. He turned on his heel and swept down the hall in the direction of the king's study while Weskham fell into step beside him.

It was what they had been waiting for, more or less, for a month and a half, now. However hard they had been trying to stop it, Regis only seemed to push back harder than ever. He was more stubborn than the rest of them put together and he had an uncanny ability to get them to back down, even when it was for his own good. Even Cor, who had become more and more adamant that they should just lock the king in his bedroom, wasn't willing to stand against Regis. Cor may have had strong opinions, but he didn't have the will to follow through on them where the king was concerned. Clarus seemed to be the only one who did.

So it was Clarus that Weskham had come searching for, rather than Cor. Together they returned to the king's study and found it empty.

Or so it seemed at first glance.

"Good morning, Clarus," rasped voice by his feet.

Clarus looked down to find Regis sitting on the floor beside the door, his back and head resting against the wall as he looked up at them.

" _Regis_." Clarus dropped to his knees.

He looked like shit. His eyes were fever-bright, made all the more stark by the dark circles that surrounded them. His skin was waxy and sallow, his cheeks hollow. Knowing Regis, he probably felt worse than he looked.

How had they let it get this bad? Cor was right. They should have done something more drastic while they had the chance.

As much as he wanted to call Regis a fool and chastise him for his idiotic behavior the past month and a half, Clarus held his tongue. That was what Cor would have done and that was how they had gotten into this mess in the first place.

"I do not suppose you have come to see me to court?" Regis asked, almost managing to sound hopeful.

Clarus pursed his lips to keep from saying something stupid. He shook one hand free of his robes and pressed his wrist to Regis' forehead. His skin was hot to the touch; Clarus was hardly surprised.

"Can you walk?" Clarus asked.

The night before he had noted Regis walking more slowly, as if his joints ached. It might have seemed a dumb question to ask a young man, but he was sitting on the floor by the door. What else would he be doing there?

"Poorly," Regis admitted, putting his hands on the floor and struggling to sit upright.

Clarus held out his hand and Regis took it. With one great heave, he was on his feet, albeit unsteadily. He stumbled from the effort and hit Clarus, who caught him deftly, holding him under one arm and across his back.

Regis let out a breath, dropping his head so his forehead his Clarus' shoulder and holding onto his arm. He didn't say a word, like he didn't want to acknowledge it was happening at all, but they had all known that if he continued to push himself he would eventually fall. If only he wasn't so _damn_ proud. If he had let himself lean before, maybe they could have prevented this. Now he had no choice. He couldn't even stand up without hanging onto Clarus.

It was going to kill him to be seen walking across the Citadel like this.

Clarus looked over his shoulder at Weskham, who was looking as pained as Clarus felt.

"Clear the halls," Clarus said.

Weskham met his gaze. Regis looked up. After a moment, Weskham nodded his understanding and turned to do as he was bidden.

Regis sighed and Clarus felt some of the tension drain out of his body. "Thank you, Clarus…" he breathed.

"Regis," Clarus said, shifting his hold on his friend and planting his feet so he could lend as much support as Regis needed for as long as it took Weskham to clear the way for them. "There is something you must know—something I should not have to tell you after all these years." He paused, gathering his words and meeting Regis' gaze. "I will always be at your side, no matter what you face. I may not be able to shield you from everything, try as I might, but I will _always_ be here. You can trust in me. You can _lean on me_."

Regis shut his eyes and rested his forehead forward on Clarus' shoulder once more. Clarus could feel Regis' hand tighten against the back of his robes.

"I know, Clarus," Regis said, voice tight.

He said said it in a way that made Clarus think he didn't actually understand at all. It had been months and Regis still wouldn't speak about Aulea. He wouldn't open up. He wouldn't let himself lean.

"I do trust in you," Regis said at length. "But there are some burdens I must bear on my own."

That may have been the truth. Clarus couldn't hold the weight of the Wall for him, couldn't make the tough decisions, and yet…

"This does not need to be one of them," Clarus said.

Regis didn't respond before the door opened again and Weskham entered.

"Everything is prepared," Weskham said.

True to his word, Weskham had cleared the Citadel of staff between the king's study and the upstairs rooms. Between Clarus and Weskham, they were able to get Regis upstairs with minimal fuss, though his pale, tight-lipped expression spoke of his pain—both physical and emotional. He would never be convinced to sleep in his own room, Clarus knew, so they settled him in the one across the hall that he used, on and off, these days.

He was still only half-dressed, the buttons misaligned on his vest, as he had evidently slept in the study the night before. He didn't protest as Clarus helped him out of the remainder of his clothes and into bed, and he lay where he was left, propped among the pillows with the blankets pulled around him, clenching his jaw in an apparent effort to keep from shivering.

Clarus pulled the window shut. It wasn't cold outside, but if they wanted him to sleep through this fever something would have to be done. He glanced at Weskham, intending to ask him to build up a fire, and found him doing just that already.

"Would you like something for breakfast?" Clarus asked gently as he pulled the curtains shut.

Regis shook his head, not opening his eyes.

Clarus sighed. "I didn't intend to give you a choice of _whether_ to eat, but rather _what_ to eat."

Regis opened his eyes at last, staring up at Clarus without even the will to look reproachful. He opened his mouth, presumably to respond, but all that came out was a hollow cough. He turned his head and coughed into the pillow, clutching at the blankets in front of him as if just that effort was painful.

Clarus' mouth twisted. It was so much harder to be harsh with him when he looked so damn pathetic, but he had hardly eaten in months. Even when he did eat it was broth or toast. He seemed to prefer things that were either naturally bland or liquid. Perhaps, working off of that…

He pulled Weskham aside once the fire was lit. "See if you can't get something liquid from the kitchens for him. If they throw it in a blender, he might just eat it."

Weskham gave him a short nod—perhaps having made the same observations—and slipped away.

Clarus looked at his watch. The schedule had nothing unavoidable that morning, but there were meetings later in the day that would have to be rearranged.

"I do not suppose… you would be willing to bring me some work….?" Regis' voice was hoarse when he collected it once more.

Clarus looked down at him, brows coming together in the middle. "Certainly not."

Regis sighed, his eyes still shut, and nodded as if he had expected nothing less. "Then, at least, stay and speak to me."

That request caught Clarus off-guard more than the previous. He had expected, after those months of unending activity, that being stuck in bed would be tedious for him. But in the months since Aulea's death, Regis had never outright requested company until then.

Hope flickered in Clarus' chest. Could this, perhaps, be a turning point for him? If he wanted to talk….

Clarus retrieved an armchair from the adjacent room and took up a position at his friend's bedside. "I can stay until court begins, but then I will have to take your place."

Regis nodded mutely.

"What would you like to talk about?" Clarus asked.

"Anything," Regis rasped. Then, after a pause: "Tell me about your son. How is Gladiolus?"

Regis shut his eyes. Clarus leaned back in his chair and settled his arms on the rests. "He is well. He'll be three years old in a couple months. He's still exercising his right to say 'no' at every possible turn. Really, I should say his right to _yell_ 'no,' as we're still learning volume control in my house."

Regis smiled, a weak little half-smile, but he didn't open his eyes.

"He got this terrible, daemonic stuffed dog from his aunt for Solstice a few months ago. It has, inside, a recorder that registers whatever is said around it, and then plays it back at varied speeds. I swear, the thing sounds as if it were possessed. The batteries just died in it last night and we've convinced him it's broken. Gods save us when the child learns they can be replaced." Clarus spoke, letting his mind wander to whatever it was about Gladiolus that came to the forefront. It seemed to do some good; the little smile persisted on Regis' face.

"How have you dealt with the aunt?"

"If she ever has children, I will make certain it is the end of her. Until then, I bide my time," Clarus said. "Of course, Gladiolus loves her. He only sees her perhaps once a month, yet they have a peculiar brand of games that he will only play with her. For instance, just a few months ago a new one began quite out of the blue. She was visiting and he calls out to her: 'Aunt Iz-zy!'—he can't quite manage Isemeine, yet—and she, of course, responds, 'Gladio!' and for some reason he thinks this is the funniest thing in Eos. So he does it again: 'Aunt Iz-zy!', and back and forth they go, while he runs around the whole house. Now they'll start it anywhere, without warning. While he's supposed to be eating dinner, when she's quite on the opposite side of the house—a few nights ago he tried to do it while she wasn't even there! We had to call her phone just so he could say 'Aunt Iz-zy!' and she could say 'Gladio!' back at him."

Regis' smile deepened throughout the story. "I can hardly wait until mine are of that age. Though I am not in a hurry to skip all that comes before."

The door opened and Weskham arrived, bearing a tray with a single glass full of vibrantly green liquid. Regis opened his eyes, tilting his head to one side to watch the approach.

"Are you endeavoring to drug me, already?" Regis asked as Weskham set the glass down on his bedside table.

"It is called a _smoothie_ , Sire," Weskham said, undeterred. "A blend of milk, fruit, and often yogurt."

"No fruit is that color," Regis said. Clarus was inclined to agree with him.

"I believe this one also contains spinach."

Clarus had thought Regis looked pathetic in the first place, but it was nothing compared to the look he gave them, now.

"Am I being punished?" He asked.

"It's not so bad, Regis. Just try it," Weskham said.

Clarus turned the glass in a circle, studying the thick green liquid dubiously.

"You're not helping, Clarus," Weskham sighed. "You're free to try it, too."

"Why don't _you_ try it?" Clarus suggested.

"I already have. It tastes nothing of spinach," Weskham assured them.

Regis and Clarus exchanged unconvinced looks.

"You, first," Regis said.

Clarus sighed. When he had sent Weskham to the kitchen for something liquid, he had hoped for something a little less terrifying. But, in the effort of getting Regis to eat—or drink— _something_ besides broth and toast, he picked up the glass and took a drink.

It… actually didn't taste half as bad as it looked.

Regis watched him sharply from his pillows.

"It tastes… fruity," Clarus said, taking another drink. "He's right. I can't taste the spinach."

"Not that I have anything in particular against spinach," Regis said. "But I would prefer not to drink it with _yogurt_."

"You could do with the nutrients, Regis," Weskham pointed out.

Clarus set the glass down. "Your turn. Just _try_ it."

Regis sighed. He struggled to sit upright and pain showed clearly on his face with each motion, but eventually he managed to prop himself up, leaning back against his pillows, and take a drink of the smoothie. After a moment's consideration, he gave something like a shrug.

"It tastes no worse than anything else," he said.

"Which is to say, not particularly good?" Weskham asked.

"Indeed." Regis took another drink.

They managed to coax him through half of the smoothie before he insisted he was too full to continue. Clarus might have continued pushing, but Weskham was willing to accept the excuse.

"He hasn't been eating hardly at all," Weskham said, taking the glass. "I doubt if his stomach can hold much, anymore."

So they left him alone on the matter, for the time being, but Weskham promised to see to it that more food was brought in a few hours as he left to return the glass to the kitchens.

"You should get some rest, Regis," Clarus said, rising from his chair.

"Wait."

He stopped the word, waiting. Regis had half sat up again, an anxious expression on his face.

"You said you would remain until court."

Surprised yet again, Clarus checked his watch. He still had time. He folded himself back into the chair and Regis relaxed back against his pillows, shutting his eyes once more.

"Tell me more about Gladiolus," He requested.

"Regis…" Clarus sighed, shifting in his chair. As hopeful as he was for Regis wanting to talk for the first time in three and a half months, he also wanted his king well again. "You need rest."

"Please," Regis said. Something about the way it came out, entreating and a little bit broken, tugged at Clarus' heartstrings. What was he meant to do? He spoke.

For the next hour, he told Regis every story of Gladio that crossed his mind, from his favorite books to how he had learned to cheat at a new board game only a few hours after he had gotten it. Occasionally Regis asked a question, which Clarus answered, but eventually he slipped into an easy quiet. His breathing levelled out, his body relaxed, the furrow of discomfort that had been lingering on his brow all along disappeared.

He had fallen asleep, after all.

And not a moment too soon. Clarus was needed in court. As much as he was willing to sit there all day and see to it that Regis had whatever he needed, they both had duty that needed to be filled.

He rose from his chair as quietly as he was able. Not quietly enough, it seemed. Either that, or Regis hadn't been as asleep as he had guessed.

"Clarus." A hand grasped at his sleeve and Clarus turned, surprised, to find Regis looking up at him once more. "Do not leave me alone."

His eyes shut, like he didn't have the strength to hold them open. Clarus caught his hand before the hold on his sleeve slipped, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Regis, I must attend court for the pair of us. If nothing else, the council must be informed that you are ill, but in the meantime someone will need to head the discussion and make decisions." He held onto his king's hand, watching as Regis' eyes fluttered open once more.

"Please…" he rasped, blinking fever-bright eyes up at Clarus.

 _Gods_ , why did he have to be like that?

Clarus squeezed Regis' hand more tightly between his. If he could have stayed he would have, but he dropped his gaze, shaking his head.

"I will send Weskham to you," Clarus said, "Is that alright?"

Regis considered him for a moment before finally nodding. That would have to do.

Clarus rose to his feet, holding onto Regis hand until the last. "He'll be along in a few minutes. I'll be back whenever I am able."

Regis nodded again; his hand fell away where Clarus released it and he watched Clarus, turning his head so he could see until the door was shut. Clarus couldn't turn his back. It took all his willpower just to close the door on him and, once he had, he put his back to it and let out a breath.

 _You're breaking my heart, Regis_. He thought, shutting his eyes and running his hands over his face.

He would have done anything. But Regis always had to ask for the impossible.


	13. Bedtime Stories and Chocolate Cake

Clarus had left him with relatively simple instructions: stay with Regis as long as you are able and do not, under any circumstances, leave him alone with Cor.

As much as Weskham thought the renewed feud between Clarus and Cor was childish, he was inclined to agree with Clarus' assessment in this case. Cor was young and prone to being too harsh. Perhaps time would mellow him, someday, but for now it was best to keep his stern opinions from Regis. This wasn't as hard as it might have been under other circumstances. Cor may have been too honest at times, but he rarely, if ever, offered his opinions unsolicited, anymore—though he certainly had done in his younger years. Now, he believed in his duty and he believed in Regis. His concerns were, just like the rest of them, driven by worry for the king and disappointment at seeing him fall short of his potential.

At his heart, Cor was devoted and loyal. He didn't _want_ to cause trouble for Regis; he wanted to help as much as the others. They just all disagreed about how best to do that.

So, for that day, Weskham set aside his other duties and sat up with Regis. He found Regis in a peculiar mood; he was desperate not to be left alone, for one reason or another, and seemed to be looking for a distraction, but though he begged conversation from Weskham, he dodged all attempts to talk about Aulea.

Weskham relented, bowing to the king's unspoken wishes. He guessed that Regis was searching for a distraction expressly because he _didn't_ want to think about Aulea. This, likely as not, was the same reason why Regis had been working without pause for nearly two months. Now he was unable to fall back on the distraction of work and the kingdom; now he had nowhere else to hide from his grief and he was afraid of being left alone with it.

If he wasn't ready to face it, Weskham couldn't think what to do except wait. Hopefully soon he would fold and accept that he needed to discuss it. Until then, Weskham sat with him and provided a distraction.

He read aloud from a book. It was vaguely reminiscent of a time in the past when a much younger Prince Regis had sheepishly asked for a bedtime story in spite of—in his own words—being much to old for such things. It was Regis, himself, who pointed out that the last time Weskham had read to him, he had been twelve.

"You own choice, I believe," Weskham observed.

"My own choice not to be read to?" Regis asked, opening just one eye to look at him.

Weskham inclined his head.

"I suppose you may be right," Regis' voice was but a whisper. It had worn away, hour by hour, as the day progressed. Every cough seemed to weaken it further. "I tend to avoid that which makes me appear childish… and I daresay it is an undignified way to squander your skills."

"To the first I would respond that, as the King of Lucis, you are permitted to take whatever relaxation you can—no matter how unconventional," Weskham removed his monocle and looked down his nose at Regis. "And to the second: I can make most anything appear dignified."

Regis managed a smile at the last as both eyes drifted shut once more.

"Besides," Weskham said, reaching forward to grasp one of Regis' shoulders. "All of my skills have always been best put to use at your service—whatever service that may be."

Regis opened both eyes to look at him, this time. The smile that had flashed across his face before returned, but this one was smaller: less amused and more grateful.

"Thank you, Wes."

"Of course." Weskham squeezed his shoulder and sat back in the armchair.

The story resumed. They covered nearly three-quarters of the book in this fashion, though Weskham was certain Regis had missed more than half of it. He watched as Regis slipped in and out of consciousness, but he never stopped reading. Regis latched onto the distraction whenever he was awake; it provided him with something to focus on besides his pain, enough that he could fall back asleep again. Without it, Weskham doubted very much that he would have slept at all.

Several times throughout the day, Weskham sent down to the kitchens for food—something Regis could eat without thinking about, whether it be another smoothie or some sort of soup. Weskham managed to coax him into eating no less than six small meals throughout the day in this fashion, and he supplemented them with a constant supply of water and tea whenever Regis was awake.

The room was stifling; he kept the curtains drawn and the fire blazing all day, though winter was beginning to thaw, outside. In spite of the heat, Regis shivered beneath his blankets and Weskham called more than once for extras to be brought. If the fever didn't break, soon, he feared they may have to send for a doctor.

Past dinner time, Clarus returned, evidently having dealt with everything on his schedule for the day. He looked weary after handling not only his own, but the king's responsibilities, but he smiled at the sight of Weskham reading to Regis, all the same.

"Have I missed storytime?" He asked in an undertone, shutting the door behind him and slipping inside.

Regis' eyes flicked open at Clarus' voice. He hazarded a smile at the comment.

"Clarus," he rasped in that whisper that his voice had dwindled to. "How fares my kingdom?"

"Holding together, somehow," Clarus said, though Weskham caught the flash of concern in his eye at Regis' voice. He sat down on the edge of the bed and caught Regis' hand when Regis reached out to him. "I managed not to kill any of your council."

"It is a struggle I face daily," Regis whispered.

"How are you feeling?" Clarus asked.

Regis grimaced, shutting his eyes and resettling his head among the pillows. "Do you recall that time when we faced a gargantua and I was too slow on the roll and ended up sorely walloped?"

Clarus grinned. "I do."

Weskham recalled it, as well. Regis must have been about eighteen at the time. Perhaps a little older. Old enough, at least, to know he shouldn't have been where he was. It was a lesson he wasn't likely to ever forget.

"It is much worse than that," Regis said.

Clarus squeezed his hand before looking up at Weskham. "I can relieve you, if you like, Wes. My reading voice may not be as nice, but I'm sure we can make do."

Though he had been sitting there all day, Weskham wasn't overanxious for a break. It wasn't exactly the most taxing work and it was ever so gratifying to find Regis smiling. In spite of the evident pain, he had been smiling more that day than Weskham had seen him do in the last three—nearly four—months outside of his visits to the nursery.

Still, it did concern him as to what would be done overnight.

He glanced over to see what Regis made of the suggestion.

"No, Clarus," Regis murmured. "You must go home. Your family is waiting for you."

Clarus made a face. "My family will survive without me for one night."

"As will I," Regis said. In spite of his words, when his eyes drifted shut again a furrow formed on his brow. Weskham didn't think it was entirely from the pain.

Clarus caught Weskham's eye. Weskham shrugged. They would make do, one way or another. Regis was in pain but his life wasn't in danger. As difficult as it was to watch, Weskham understood that it was worse not to do anything.

Weskham watched the struggle on Clarus' face, knowing Clarus wanted to help as much as he did.

Finally, Clarus squeezed Regis' hand once more and leaned back. "I'm staying."

Regis' eyes snapped open. He opened his mouth, apparently intent on arguing, but Clarus silenced him.

"No. No objections. I'm not leaving and that's the end of it." Usually it was Regis who put his foot down and got his own way. In fact, Weskham couldn't recall the last time it had happened the other way around, but he watched, amazed, as Regis backed down.

"Has he eaten?" Clarus asked Weskham.

"Several times," Weskham confirmed.

"Good. I'm going to change out of these robes and get something, myself." He squeezed Regis' hand once more before releasing it and rising to his feet. "I'll be right back."

"Clarus—wait," Regis said, struggling to push himself up.

Clarus paused, having taken only half a step toward the door. Weskham leaned forward to help Regis put his back against the pillows and settle in a more or less upright position.

"Are you going to the kitchens?" Regis asked, licking his dry, cracked lips. Weskham handed him the glass of water.

"Yes, why? Can I get something for you?" Clarus asked, eyebrows lifting.

Regis hesitated for a moment, holding the water but not taking a drink. The hesitation, Weskham guessed, sprang from the peculiarity of his request. All this time with no interest in food and now…?

"Chocolate cake."

In spite of his surprise, Weskham kept his features carefully neutral. The last thing he wanted was to frighten Regis off from making further requests for food, however unusual.

Clarus was less controlled. "You don't even like sweets," he observed, clearly taken aback by the request.

"Not often," Regis agreed. "But just now, it does sound good."

Weskham caught Clarus' eye. The first thing that sounded good in four months? It was a step in the right direction, however unorthodox.

"Of course. I'll see what I can do," Clarus said.

Weskham caught the look they exchanged and the nod that Regis gave to Clarus, and he couldn't help the twinge of envy he felt. Clarus was Regis' oldest friend of their group—of anyone at all, in fact, now that Aulea was gone—and sometimes it showed more starkly than others, like when Weskham had spent the full day ensuring that Regis was kept company and cared for but, at the end of it all, Regis just wanted Clarus to stay with him.

Weskham sighed, letting the feeling go. It was a poisonous thought; he knew it wasn't necessarily that Regis preferred any one of them to any other, but that they each had something slightly different with him. Just then, perhaps, after being mothered by Weskham all day, what he really needed was his brother in arms to bring him chocolate cake.

He leaned forward to rearrange the blankets that that been dislodged by Regis' shifting and settled back in his chair.

"Shall I continue?" He asked, lifting the book off his lap.

Regis looked at him for a moment before giving his approval by way of a nod.

Weskham resumed his reading, though they stopped more frequently as Regis asked to be filled in on what he had missed. Eventually Weskham skipped back, as they had done several times that day, to the last thing Regis could remember hearing. By the time Clarus returned, changed out of his council robes and bearing a meal on a tray, Weskham and Regis were both absorbed in the book once more.

Reading paused as Clarus joined them. He sat down on the foot of the bed and passed a plate containing an individual chocolate cake to the king.

"Thank you, Clarus," Regis rasped, managing a smile as he took it.

"It's your kitchen staff you should be thanking. They made that expressly for you when I delivered your request," Clarus said as he set his dinner tray across his knees and made himself comfortable on the opposite end of the bed.

"Weskham will have to see to it that my gratitude is sufficiently expressed," Regis said.

"I will," Weskham affirmed.

With Clarus' presence, Regis' mind was wholly derailed from the book still open in Weskham's hands. Eventually, Weskham admitted to himself that it was unlikely they would continue any time in the near future, as Regis now had both cake and Clarus to occupy his mind. So he marked the page and set the book aside, refilling Regis' glass of water when he coughed and handing it to him.

Weskham was pleased—and a little surprised—to see that Regis finished the whole cake without appearing to struggle. It must had been the first thing he had eaten voluntarily in months. All that time they had spent trying to decide how to prevent Regis from wearing himself ragged and falling sick and yet, in the end, perhaps it had done some good for him after all. Perhaps this would be where things began looking up.

"Are you staying, Weskham?" Clarus asked between bites of his dinner.

Originally he had intended to. Yet, seeing Regis with Clarus had made him think twice. Perhaps Regis would have preferred a change in company.

Weskham glanced at Regis, opening his mouth with the intent of excusing himself. The look on Regis' face, however, stopped him.

Regis could be stoic and unreadable with the best of them, when it suited his purposes. It was a skill he had honed over a lifetime as heir to the throne before he even took the crown. Now, however, his thoughts were clear on his face—openly entreating: _please don't leave_.

"I thought I would stay, yes," Weskham said, glancing back at Clarus.

"We'll be a whole merry crew, then," Clarus said.

"I'm not certain about _merry_ ," Weskham said severely.

He turned his eyes back to Regis and found Regis smiling at him.

"Good," Regis said, reaching out to Weskham until Weskham took his hand. "I wish to hear the end of the book."

Weskham smiled, squeezing Regis' hand affectionately. "Far be it from me to refuse."

He had been right before, of course. It was just different, not lesser than, what Regis had with Clarus.

And that he could accept.


	14. Recovery

The logical part of Regis' mind had known all along that, at the pace he had set, his body would eventually give out. He hadn't expected, however, that when it did happen it would be so catastrophic.

Day by day he dragged by. At first he slept, mostly, but he was only able to do that when he didn't think of Aulea and he was only able to not think of Aulea when Clarus and Weskham lingered and distracted him. They remained by his side, one or the other, steadfast throughout. It was just as well. Without their company, Regis would doubtless have fallen into another depressive stupor. With them, he managed to feel a little more like himself, in spite of the ache in his muscles and the hole in his heart.

Cor was there, on and off, as well, though Regis caught Clarus shooting him significant glares whenever he did come. For the most part, Cor was characteristically silent. Regis had hoped that, if anyone, Cor would be most sympathetic to his desire to resume work. This turned out to not be the case. Whatever the three of them discussed in their secret meetings, it seemed to have changed Cor's mind.

"Cor. Would you do me the service of informing Clarus that _some_ work will not be the death of me?" Regis' words were, perhaps, made less convincing by the fact that they were punctuated by a coughing fit, and that his voice was made weaker for it on the other side. "I am not an invalid," he rasped in a voice that seemed fit for one.

"No, Your Majesty," Cor said. He was standing at attention at the foot of Regis' bed, as if he had forgotten how to be at ease, and he didn't quite meet the king's eye when he spoke. "I will not."

"Surely—" Regis paused as another bout of coughing racked his body. Weskham pushed a glass of water into his hand and he drained it with a grateful look. "Surely you understand: I must be allowed to see to my own duty."

A muscle tensed in Cor's jaw and he finally looked at Regis.

"What you _must_ do is start taking care of yourself, " he snapped. "Everyone will suffer if you don't."

Cor turned and left the room, shutting the door firmly in his wake. Regis, taken aback, blinked up at Weskham, who was staring at the closed door. At last Weskham sighed and took Regis' glass to refill it.

"He's only worried about you," Weskham said. "I don't think he really believed you weren't… recovered."

Regis dropped his gaze. Suddenly they weren't just talking about the cough and the fever. They were talking about Aulea without _talking_ about her.

"I do not believe I shall ever be recovered," Regis murmured.

Weskham grasped his shoulder. "If your definition of 'recover' is to return to the state you were in before Aulea died, then no. You won't. But _different_ doesn't have to be all bad."

Regis looked up, meeting his friend's earnest gaze. Mostly, from where he was sitting, it looked all bad. But he nodded all the same.

"Now get some rest," Weskham squeezed his shoulder and let go.

It was a full week before Clarus would consent to bring him something to work on. Even then, his faithful Shield and his mother-steward set limits on the time he could work and kept him more or less confined to bed.

It was longer, still, before Regis would consent to seeing his children. Whatever infection plagued him, he didn't want it spread to the nursery. To that end, he wouldn't even permit Crea to enter his room with news of them, as much as it pained him to forbid her. In lieu of bringing him information directly, the twins' nanny wrote notes and reports and delivered them to Weskham.

" _Noctis_ hates _carrots."_

Weskham read aloud.

" _Do you remember what he looked like when you gave him that lemon? It's much like that. I'm beginning to think he's just a dramatic child. The last time he was given carrots he spit them out and tried his darndest to wipe his tongue off. Mostly he just hit himself in the face. Coordination is not a strong point, at this age._

" _Reina is much less picky. I might say that makes her less fun to watch while she's eating lunch, but it certainly makes our jobs easier, as well. She'll eat just about whatever is put in front of her. She'll try anything once and most things again after that—just like the lemon!_

" _Usually kids get more picky around two, so we'll have to wait and see what happens. If Noctis is this troublesome now, I bet he only eats cereal when we hit that stage._

" _I nearly forgot: they've learned something new since the last time you saw them. I won't spoil the surprise. You'll see soon enough._

" _Get well soon. They can't wait to see you."_

Regis shifted in his bed, impatient. He loved to hear about his children from Crea, but he would have much prefered actually seeing them and holding them in his arms.

Weskham gave him a sympathetic smile. "You won't be ill forever."

It _seemed_ forever. Forever that he spent drifting in and out of consciousness; forever listening to Weskham read to him; forever begging Clarus not to leave him alone with his ghosts; forever working from bed and conducting meetings with only Clarus, trusting his Shield to convey his wishes to the council; forever before he was out of bed at all, hobbling around, let alone before he was permitted outside.

Spring had, for all practical purposes, sprung by the time that Regis had stopped coughing and was no longer afraid of passing on the infection to his children. He had been given permission to return to his duties—in some capacity—before then, but he was less concerned about making his councillors ill. After all, Weskham and Clarus had both passed through unscathed.

So it was two weeks before he saw his twins again. Two weeks had never felt so long.

* * *

Two infants was a recipe for chaos, most any time of day. From here on out, though, it was only going to get worse.

Crea watched as Princess Reina pushed herself up on her hands and knees, wobbled, and fell over. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment before tilting her over-large head back to look at Crea, as if to ask what had just happened.

"Is that it, then?" Crea asked her. "Are you just going to give up, or are you going to try again?"

If the princess had a response, Crea didn't get to hear it. She was distracted by a concerningly wet sensation on her hand and looked down to find that the fingers that Noctis had been holding had become a teething toy.

"You have more toys to your name than I've ever owned in my life, yet you're chewing on _me_ ," she sighed.

Noctis babbled through his full mouth. She smiled fondly at him, smoothing her free hand over his fine hair. She didn't pull her fingers away.

"Are you teaching my children bad manners, Mistress Vinculum?"

Crea looked up as a voice spoke from the doorway. So did both twins.

"Your Majesty!" She beamed up at the king. "I wasn't expecting to see you, today."

Reina, who still lay on her back in the middle of the floor, tilted her head so she could see her father. Her little face broke into a sunny smile at the familiar sight. She proudly displayed both of her teeth and gave a squeal of delight by way of greeting.

"Nor at all, I imagine," King Regis said as he stepped into the room with his steward at his heel.

"Well, we hadn't quite given up hope," Crea said.

Two weeks was a long time to be taken ill—though she understood that a portion of his quarantine had been his own doing, out of concern for his childrens' health—but truly, looking at him now, he didn't look worse off than he had been two weeks ago. If she hadn't thought it sounded so mad, she would have even said he looked _better_. He didn't look quite so drawn. He didn't look quite so wane. Perhaps this was a function of having been closed in his room for a week and fussed over by his staff; it was hard to overwork yourself when you couldn't get out of bed. It seemed getting sick had done him good, after all.

* * *

Two weeks apart, one spent confined, for all intents and purposes, to his bed each and every day, and finally he was back where he wanted to be. Back where he belonged.

Two weeks apart and one smile made the whole wait worth it.

Regis smiled down at his daughter, watching her as she tried to keep her eyes on him even as she rolled onto her stomach. Noctis, still chewing on Crea's hand, babbled nonsensically, though his eyes were fixed on the king as well.

"Hello, my dear. So happy to see me!" He cried, awed and amazed that such a smile could have been for him. To Crea, he added: "I can hardly believe they remember me."

"Well of course they remember you! What did you expect, that they would forget you as soon as you were out of sight?" Crea said, somehow managing to sound amused and exasperated at once.

"I know not what I thought…" Regis admitted.

It felt like forever that he was gone. He had thought of them every day—very nearly every minute of every day—and yet he had wondered if they thought of him at all. It seemed they did.

"Reina," Crea called.

Regis watched as his little girl turned to look at the sound of her own name. That was new, wasn't it? Had they always known that? When had they learned? What else had he missed?

"Are you going to show Daddy what you've learned?" Crea prompted.

The infant looked at her for a moment longer before turning her eyes back to Regis. There was no doubt about it, by now. The blue was there to stay. Regis loved everything about it. Both twins had brilliantly blue eyes and stark black hair. Just like their mother.

"What is it, Little Princess?" Regis asked, dropping to a crouch on the floor just a few feet away from her. His hands were itching to scoop at least _one_ of them up, but first he had to know. He looked up at Crea. "Is she crawling?"

"She's sure trying," Crea affirmed.

A smile split the king's face. His little girl, crawling already!

"Reina," he cooed, holding his hands out. "Come here, my dear."

He watched as she expended great effort to put her hands on the floor and push her upper body off of it. Surely _that_ was new.

"Oh, go on, Reina. You can do better than that. I just saw you do it," Crea coaxed.

The princess turned her head to look at Crea once more, then back at Regis. He closed and opened his hands, extending them just a little farther. "Come on, my darling."

She pushed with both arms and slid backwards until she was on her stomach once more. Crea laughed. Regis smiled, but the little princess wasn't through. She hauled herself back up on her arms, only this time she got her knees up underneath as well.

 _That_ was new without any doubt.

Regis held his breath, waiting to see if she would do more. She held herself there on hands and knees for a moment, staring at him, before she lost her balance and tipped over sideways, rolling straight onto her back.

"And that's about where we were when you walked in," Crea said.

"This is wonderful!" Regis cried, lurching forward and finally giving in to the impulse to just pick her up.

He scooped Reina up into his arms, fully intending to lift her up over his head and give her the biggest, scratchiest kiss he had ever bestowed, but he hadn't counted on the lingering weakness from his time confined to bed. Instead _he_ over balanced and fell forward, landing on his back and cradling the infant against his chest.

Regis stared up at the ceiling, dumbfounded, until Crea's face appeared in his vision. Weskham appeared above her, a moment later.

"Let this be a lesson to you, my child," Regis said gravely as Reina pushed herself up on her arms against his chest. "You are never too old to fail utterly at the simplest tasks."

Crea grinned. Weskham offered him a hand, but Regis shook his head.

"No, I believe we are just fine, right here," he said, tilting his head to look at Reina, who was doing much the same to him. "How fares Noctis? Is he doing the same?"

"He hasn't gotten as far as that last stage, yet," Crea said. She lifted the little prince into her arms and didn't even fall over. "But he will, soon."

She deposited the second twin on top of Regis, beside Reina. Regis made a sound of surprise, but didn't object. He just wrapped his arms around the both of them and didn't even complain when Noct pulled his beard.

"Ah, my dearest ones," he exhaled, shutting his eyes. "I missed you so."

For the first time in two weeks, he felt truly comfortable. It didn't matter that he was lying on the floor with two squirming babies on his chest. It didn't matter that there was a plastic train underneath his head or that the play mat ran halfway underneath his back and cut him awkwardly in the middle. The only important thing was that he was whole once more.

And he was _never_ going to work himself to exhaustion again.


	15. An Unexpected Visit

That door still haunted him.

It sat there, just in the same place it had always been, except now it was always closed and unguarded. The Crownsguards who had once been stationed outside had moved across the hall to the vacant room where Regis slept most nights since recovering from his illness.

Just walking past it was uncomfortable—knowing what lay on the other side and what didn't. It made his stomach knot every time, like a rag wrung out to dry. Sometimes he stopped and just stared at it.

He wanted to go in, but he didn't know how. He didn't think he could face it, still.

How could he? Not just now, but ever. Behind that door, _she_ was lingering. If he went inside it would all come flooding back, uncontrolled, with nothing to stop it. He didn't think he could face that. There wasn't a good time and there wasn't ever going to be. Too soon and everything was too fresh and sharp. Too late and it would just be ingrained.

Regis sighed and turned away from the door, walking the few feet across the hall to his new room.

 _Temporary room_ , he corrected himself. Someday he would go in. But not today.

Aulea had been dead for well over four months. Nothing had changed.

Clarus thought he was doing better—Regis could see it in the way he smiled in the mornings—but Clarus was wrong. It was true, he no longer had such difficulty concentrating; the glass wall that had blocked him off from every choice, no matter how small, was broken and crumbling at his feet. He ate regularly, now, though that was mostly Weskham's doing, and every now and then there was some food that didn't sound as terrible as the rest. Furthermore, after his crazed, work-fueled stint, he had been more cautious about taking the rest his body needed.

Or, at the very least, he tried to.

His mind still didn't want to let him sleep. During that week when Clarus had refused to let him get out of bed, everything had been alright, more or less. Someone was there at all times. Their company was like a candle in the night, holding back the dark so he could rest.

Now they were gone and the sleepless nights returned. He couldn't possibly ask them to continue to do the same for him while he was well. Both Clarus and Weskham had other needs to see to; they deserved their own full nights' sleep.

So he suffered through it, forcing himself to return to the vacant room at night and lay in bed. Most of the night he would lay there, struggling to keep thoughts of her from his mind. He didn't want to think about her. He didn't want to miss her. He didn't want to feel empty and terrible inside anymore. He just wanted to see to his duty and do what he was meant to do.

That was his intent, when he returned to the vacant room across the hall from his own, that night. Inside, the room still looked unoccupied. Across the hall, the room he had once shared with Aulea was full of memories and reminders of life: there were books in the bookcases, plants in the windows, keepsakes in the drawers. Here there was nothing but the generic. A guest room.

The linens on the bed matched the black and gold paneling. The nightstand was empty, save for a lamp and a glass of water. There were no shelves, no books, no possessions. The only contents of the closet were a scant few suits that Weskham had taken from the other room. It was neat and tidy and completely devoid of interest.

Regis sighed as he shut the door behind him. The room didn't just look empty; it _felt_ empty. The chair that either Weskham or Clarus had occupied for the better part of two weeks was pulled away into the corner. Servants had been in to tidy and made up the bed until it looked as if he had never slept there before.

Not that he did much sleeping. He intended to try, however. He got as far as striping off his suit and changing into a loose shirt and a pair of drawstring pants before a knock at the door interrupted him.

Surprised, Regis crossed the room and opened the door to find Clarus outside.

"Clarus." Regis raised his eyebrows. "You should be home."

"Very soon," Clarus agreed. "There were a few things I needed to tidy up."

Not one to make his friend stand out in the hall, Regis stepped aside, holding the door open for him.

"How are you feeling?" Clarus asked as he stepped inside and Regis shut the door.

"Well enough," Regis said. He was assuming Clarus was asking after his health. Otherwise the answer would have been 'I feel like utter shit and you know full well.'

Clarus scrutinized him for a moment. It was a look that made Regis wonder if Clarus _hadn't_ meant to ask how he was feeling emotionally.

"Look, Regis." Clarus paused, running his hand over the top of his head before deciding to push on. "I know you haven't visited Aulea's tomb since the funeral."

Ah. So they were talking about that, after all.

Regis dropped his gaze, turning and walking across the room to sit down on the bed as he cast about for some way to sidetrack the conversation. Anything would do. Anything would be better.

"I thought… if you did want to go, I would be only too willing to accompany you." Clarus persisted in spite of Regis' efforts.

 _How can he know me so well and not at all?_ Regis thought. _I cannot go back there. Surely he must understand that._

That tomb housed what he hated most: the empty shell of his beloved. It wasn't her, closed up in that cold stone box. It was just a ghost. How could Clarus ask him to face that?

 _You should talk to her, you know_ , Spero's voice whispered in his ear.

Regis shut his eyes and blocked out the sounds of his own mind.

"I am very tired, Clarus," he said. It was true, but he wasn't likely to get any sleep.

By the door, Clarus sighed.

"I mean it, Regis. I think you know you need to face her. I'd like to help, if you'll let me." Clarus took a step forward, his first since Regis had moved away from him.

"What is there to face?!" Regis snapped, lifting his eyes at last and settling his fiery gaze on Clarus. "My queen is dead, and with her my life. All I can do it carry out my duty to the best of my ability without that."

Clarus froze, his eyes widening in surprise. Regis didn't lower his gaze, this time. At length, Clarus spoke again, though his voice was quieter in the wake of Regis' ire. "Is that what you're doing?" He asked. "Just surviving for the sake of duty?"

"Everyone requires something of me." He wasn't complaining, not really. It was just the truth. That was the nature of his position.

Everyone in Lucis looked to him for guidance and leadership. Everyone in the Crown City required his strength to uphold the Wall. In the Citadel, every decision required his approval. Even his children, Gods bless their flawless souls, required his love and affection, his attention.

It was Clarus who dropped his gaze, this time.

"We all miss her, Regis," he said, subdued. "I know nothing can come close to what you lost, but there are other things left… other people."

Regis didn't respond. Across the hall, that door was sitting shut and untouched because the one person who never made him feel as if she expected something from him was gone. And she was never coming back.

"If you decide you'd like to go… I'm going to visit her tomorrow, regardless." Clarus turned toward the door. "Goodnight."

 _Don't talk about her like she's still here,_ Regis thought as he watched the door shut behind his friend.

 _She's never coming back._

* * *

Clarus was uncharacteristically quiet the following day. Regis felt remorseful for having snapped at him that way, but he wasn't sure how to remedy it. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to remedy it.

What he wanted was for everything to be the same as it had been a year ago. He wanted Aulea back. He wanted to be the same man that inspired such devotion from his friends and subjects. He wanted to stop pushing people away when he needed them the most, but every time he meant to let them in, they turned around and proved they had no idea what he was, inside.

Regis tapped his pen against his desk. He sat with his forehead in his hand—an undignified position for a king, perhaps, but no one was around to see it. Cor had the Crownsguard to see to, Weskham the household, and Clarus had disappeared an hour ago with some faint excuse about meeting Aldebrand. More likely, Clarus simply didn't want to face him. Regis could hardly blame him.

Outside the shut door, a commotion broke out. Regis looked up, his brow furrowing.

"Sir, I'm afraid I cannot let you enter without permission." That was Avunculus, surely.

"Well why not?" The second voice was also familiar, though Regis couldn't immediately place it.

"His Majesty is very busy. He cannot be expected to meet with every person who wanders in off the street."

"My dear man, I did not simply _wander in off the street_. I strode in with dignity and purpose. Well. Purpose, at least. And that purpose is to see the king. Now let me see him. He's in here, right?"

There was a thump on the door, not quite a knock, but it cut off before the door opened.

"You _cannot_ go in! Now I must ask you to leave. If you do not do so voluntarily, I will have you escorted out."

"Come, now, there's no need to get testy. He's my king, too, you know."

Regis rose to his feet. He was beginning to think that second voice sounded a little like the one that whispered in his ear, some nights.

"No—no, please don't drag me. I'm very fragile. _Your Majesty! I am being man-handled on your doorstep!_ "

Regis was already to the door before his unannounced visitor decided to address him directly, closed door or no. He yanked it open and the chaos outside halted as if someone had pressed pause on a video.

Spero Perdita stood between two Crownsguards; each held one arm and faced away from the king's study, in the direction they were endeavoring to _escort_ him, though they had both stopped to look over their shoulder at the sound of the door. At Regis' right hand stood Avunculus. He was as composed and upright as ever, in spite of the unexpected encounter.

"Your Majesty, I do apologize for the disturbance—"

"Ah, there you are." Spero smiled at him and it was just as unnerving as it had been months ago. "Might I trouble you for—" He broke off mid sentence and coughed, turning his head down. Somehow he managed the last two words, in spite of the fit. "—My—freedom—?"

Regis gestured to the Crownsguards to release him and it was so.

"My thanks—" Spero coughed, lifting a hand to wipe a line of blood from his lips.

He may have been upright and out of bed, but Regis noted he still wore bandages. They were visible at his neck, beneath the collar of his shirt, and at his wrists; it seemed likely that they spanned the full length of his arms, beneath his sleeves.

Regis' mouth twisted. Had the doctors just given up on him? He clearly wasn't well.

He motioned, holding a hand out toward the open door of his study to invite Spero inside.

"Your Majesty—" Avunculus stepped forward, perhaps to make an apology or an objection. Either way, Regis didn't allow him to finish.

"Please bring Mr. Perdita some water and see to it that we are otherwise not disturbed."

Avunculus hesitated only for a moment, then bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Regis withdrew, following Spero into his office, and shut the door behind them.

"Please, sit," Regis invited, motioning to the leather wingback armchairs that stood apart from his desk, closer to the fireplace.

Spero dropped into one of them, not needing telling twice. He hunched forward, drawing a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket and coughing intermittently into it.

"I must apologize for their treatment of you." Regis took a seat in the remaining chair. "Alas, as you have found, it is not easy to simply request to see me."

"Why not?" Spero asked when he had control of his lungs for three consecutive seconds. He leaned back in the chair and leveled his gaze at Regis; the intensity of his stare made it clear his comment wasn't merely flippant. He didn't mean 'why don't you take time out of your busy day to meet with every person who would like to see the King of Lucis.' What he meant, Regis guessed, was something harder to answer.

 _Why can't you meet with the people who need you?_

Regis gave him an unamused smile. A servant knocked on the door, then entered to bring a pitcher of water and two glasses on a tray. She set it on the coffee table between them before withdrawing.

"Because life is imperfect." Regis sat forward and poured a glass, pushing it across to Spero, who accepted it gratefully.

"And we know it better than most." Spero lifted the glass of water, as if to toast the sentiment, then drained it in one go.

Regis pursed his lips: neither a smile nor a grimace, but something in between. Just that morning he had been bemoaning not having anyone who understood. Now there was Spero.

"How are you faring?" Regis asked at length. "I perceive that you are not entirely recovered."

"Mmm… and never will be," Spero said.

He didn't elaborate. Did he mean the doctors expected his body would never heal entirely? Or something much more ominous?

"And yet, you have been released. Do you intend to return to Phoenix?" Regis asked, pushing cautiously.

"Oh no. I can't. I've been relieved of duty," Spero said, unconcerned.

Regis' brows snapped together. "They fired you?"

"In a manner of speaking," Spero said, rolling the empty glass between his hands. "I worked in the warehouse, moving crates, but this…" he gestured vaguely to himself. "Has left me crippled. If I can't do my job I can't keep it."

Regis fumed. He thought they had prevented that. Hadn't he signed an order to halt exactly this sort of thing?

"I must apologize. I had no idea—I meant for no one to lose their livelihood, through this," he said.

"Bit late for that."

Regis considered the remark—yet another comment that didn't mean what it said—and set it aside. He would make this right or, at least, as right as it could be made.

"I will see to it that you are provided for at Phoenix's expense. Do you need somewhere to stay?" He couldn't give Spero his wife back, but he could see to the rest.

Spero leaned forward to refill his glass but he paused halfway through the motion to look up at Regis. "Me, stay in the Citadel? Perish the thought, Your Majesty!" He set the pitcher back down without filling his glass. "No, thank you. It'll be bad enough as is. Can you imagine, staying in a castle with hundreds of people knowing your business and fussing over you _all the time_?"

"Yes," Regis said dryly. "I can."

Spero grinned. Most times when someone smiled at a wry comment he had made, it gave Regis the impression that _he_ had caused their amusement, but the smile Spero wore gave a very different feeling. It looked as if he was smiling at his own private joke that he had allowed Regis to share in, and the expression was his way of saying 'I'm glad you got it.'

Spero shifted the subject, leaning forward to resume his attempt to refill his glass. "I came to ask a favor."

"Of course. What can I do for you?" Regis responded without hesitation.

"I want you to condemn the bastards that killed Elaisse." He looked up at Regis and his eyes blazed with something unfamiliar. Anger? Hatred?

Admittedly, Regis had only known Spero for a short time and only met him once before. In spite of that fact, he found the ferocity on his face jarring. Here was a man who smiled months after his wife had been taken from him. They were dark, terrible smiles, yes, but it was as if he found a twisted sort of humor in the whole ghastly affair. In their brief time together, Regis couldn't say for certain that Spero had ever made a truly serious remark. Until then.

"I do intend to," Regis said, choosing his words carefully.

"I'll stick around for it." The fire was gone. One of those twisted little smiles sat in its place.

"Will you, in return, do something for me?" Regis sat forward in his chair, hands gripping the arms.

"What could the King of Lucis want from the likes of me?"

"I want you to find a reason to keep going. Some light in this darkness."

Spero choked on his water. He leaned forward to cough into his handkerchief. "You want me not to die? I should have thought you of all people would understand what a tall order that is."

"My understanding is precisely why I ask it of you," Regis said severely.

"Well, I'll hold on to see that justice, like I said." Spero coughed a few more times before rising to his feet.

"I say this with the utmost seriousness, Spero." Regis rose, as well. "What of your book?"

Spero looked up at him, tilting his head to one side. The look on his face, pensive and curious, seemed to say he had never met anyone quite like the king, before.

"It'll keep," he said.

"Not if you never see the end of it." Regis took a step forward, then stopped himself. Wasn't he doing exactly what his friends had been doing to him for months, now?

Spero continued to study him. He stooped to pick up his glass once more and drained it a second time. Again, he dodged the conversation. "Have you spoken to your wife?"

Regis blinked, taken aback. Spero couldn't know that those words had stuck in Regis' head all this time.

"I thought not. You should talk to her," Spero said.

Now it was Regis' turn to avoid the topic. He turned, moving around his chair, and returned to his desk. "She is dead, Spero."

"Well _of course_ she's dead!" Spero cried. "That's the point! I hardly think I'd have to tell you to talk to your wife if she wasn't dead, now would I?"

Regis paused, halfway around his desk, and turned to look at Spero more. There was something peculiar about him. Something Regis had noted the first time they had met, but hadn't been able to put his finger on. Now it seemed a little more clear: Spero Perdita, whoever and whatever else he might have been, was not quite right in the head. The only thing more mad than him was the fact that he actually made some sense to the dark corners of Regis' mind that he had kept tucked away for months.

"You speak with your wife?" Regis asked.

"Of course. Would you like me to introduce you?"

It sounded crazy. It _was_ crazy. But once again, Regis heard the question underneath the question. Earlier Spero had asked 'why?' and meant much more. Now he spouted nonsense, but instead, Regis saw a man reaching out to connect over grief and loss.

"Does she… speak to you?"

"That would make me mad." Spero flashed teeth in another unsettling smile, but he didn't deny it.

Regis sighed, turning and walking the rest of the way around his desk to sit down in his chair. Then he did what he hadn't had the courage to do, before.

"I have not even visited her tomb," he confessed. "I have not been back in my own room since the first night."

"You should talk to her," Spero repeated.

"Will it help?"

"Of course. Who else are you going to tell that stuff to?" Spero refilled his glass once more and sauntered around the chairs toward Regis' desk, as if without aim. When Regis didn't respond, he continued. "Not me. We've just established that I'm mad."

They hadn't, not really, but Regis took the confession in stride. At least they were both on the same page and aware of it, now.

"Talk to your queen," Spero said again. "Tell her everything you can't tell anyone else. And if she _does_ respond… well… perhaps you should talk to a doctor about that."

"And what of you?"

"Oh, I'll be very busy." Spero stopped right in front of Regis' desk, drinking only half his water before setting it down, this time. He flashed Regis a twisted smile. "I have a book to write."

"Spero—" Regis half-rose from his seat as Spero moved toward the door. Spero halted and turned back to look at him. "There will be money in the mail for you, from Phoenix. See to it that you collect it."

"Cheers." Spero turned and put his hand on the door handle.

"And one last thing—"

Again, Spero stopped and looked back at Regis.

"If you find yourself in need of someone else to talk to, besides Elaisse…" Regis braced his hands on his desk, now standing fully. He let the suggestion trail off without finishing his offer. Spero would understand.

Spero studied him with that curious look again, head cocked to one side. "Do your friends fuss over you like this?"

Regis straightened, taken aback. "I suppose they do. Do yours not?"

"Who knows?" Spero gave a bark of laughter, short and humorless. "Haven't seen them."

He pushed the door open without waiting for Regis' response. "Farewell, Your Majesty. I do hope you find the time to talk with her."

And just like that he was gone, slipping out the door and past the confused Crownsguards and attendants once more, and leaving Regis with enough food for thought to keep him sated for weeks.


	16. Into the Dark

Outside, the sun set on the Insomnian skyline, transforming the city into a spectacular, backlit silhouette. Clarus should have returned, by then. He had been conspicuous in his absence since noon, and Regis was beginning to grow concerned.

Regis paced the length of his study, his hands clasped behind his back. Where was he? Was he avoiding Regis on purpose, or had time simply gotten away from him? It must have been ten years since the last time they had rowed badly enough for Clarus to intentionally keep away. Perhaps he thought _Regis_ wanted him away. After all, he had been both rude and childish the night before.

 _What was I thinking?_ Regis cursed himself mentally, stopping at the window to watch the setting sun, though he hardly saw it.

Another, similarly concerning, possibility was that Clarus had simply gone without him. He _had_ said that Regis could accompany him if he liked, but then everything else had happened and if he had already concluded that Regis wouldn't come, who would have blamed him?

If only he hadn't been so foolish!

Now he was left with the choice to send someone to find Clarus or avoid going altogether. It was tempting not to act. He could remain there in his office for one more day without venturing out into the grounds and facing the mausoleum. All he had to do was nothing at all.

He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath before he turned toward the door. He could do this. A few steps to the door, then a few words to the attendant outside; that was all it would take. After that… well, he would deal with after when it came. One thing at a time. One foot in front of the other.

It shouldn't have been so hard to just open the door and call for Clarus. Reality didn't care much what he thought, it seemed.

Regis stopped at the door, still staring at the handle.

 _For the Gods' sake_ , he cursed himself again and threw the door open.

Avunculus stood outside, still. That meant Weskham was absent, as well. Where had _he_ gone? Were they both avoiding him? Or were they closed up in a vacant conference room, discussing what to do about their wayward king?

He didn't need to draw attention to himself before speaking; Avunculus was already looking expectantly at him. "Will you send for Clarus, please? At his earliest possible convenience."

"Of course, Sire." Avunculus bowed and swept away without delay.

Regis withdrew back into his office, intending to wait patiently. It didn't work out that way.

He resumed his pacing. Eleven swift steps took him along the length of the back wall. His shoes swivelled smoothly on the tile floor and another eleven took him back.

What if they didn't find him? What if he was already gone?

The more he thought of it, the more he hoped this would be the case. If Clarus didn't arrive then he didn't have to face him. If he didn't have to face him then he never had to go to the mausoleum, he never had to explain himself, and everything would smooth over in a day or two.

What if they _did_ find him? He would come in and stand there looking expectant. Regis wouldn't be able to find the words. That much he was certain of.

It was less than fifteen minutes by the clock on the mantle before a knock came to the door. Regis immediately ceased his pacing.

"Enter."

Clarus entered and Regis couldn't say whether he was relieved or not. Now he had to decide what to say.

Just as Regis had expected, Clarus didn't say a word. He stepped inside, letting Avunculus close the door behind him, and fixed Regis with a level stare. He _was_ upset. Worse, still, he had ever right to be. If only Regis could piece things back together as easily as he had torn them apart.

"Clarus…" Regis hesitated, meeting Clarus' impassive gaze for only a moment before he lowered his eyes. There were no two ways about it. He would just have to say it. "Have you been, yet?"

"Been where? What are you talking about?"

Regis swallowed hard and looked up again. Clarus couldn't have made this just a little bit easier? No. Of course not. He wanted Regis to admit it openly and explicitly. No more avoiding the subject, no more suggestions.

"To Aulea's tomb," Regis said.

Clarus looked taken aback, as if he hadn't expected this at all. Wasn't that what he had wanted?

"No, not yet. I thought—before dinner—but… have you changed your mind?"

 _I must have lost my mind_ , Regis thought.

"Yes," he said, instead, but his voice came out high and strangled. He couldn't believe he had said it, himself. Go to Aulea's tomb? Visit that black and terrible place after he had spent months running from it?

Clarus took a halting step forward, hesitated for a beat, then continued. For a moment, Regis thought Clarus was just going to grasp his shoulder; instead, Clarus pulled him into a bear hug. Regis made a sound of surprise, his arms pinned to his sides. It wouldn't have surprised him if Clarus had lifted him off his feet, just to add to the bone-crushing sensation, but, thankfully, his feet remained on solid ground.

"Are you sure you want me there?" Clarus asked at length.

Regis could hardly breathe for being embraced, but he managed to squeeze out a few words. "I cannot do it without you."

Finally, Clarus released him. Mostly. He stepped back with his hands on Regis' shoulders and studied him. "Then I will be by your side. As always."

Regis grasped Clarus' arm and squeezed, giving him a tight-lipped smile. "I know."

"Come then. Let's go." Clarus released his shoulders and ushered him toward the door.

Now it was all out in the open; now he was to be held accountable for his words and there would be no turning back. Clarus wouldn't let him.

* * *

It was colder inside than Regis remembered. Maybe it was just the weather, but he half wanted to flee just as soon as they had set foot inside that accursed place. That could have been cowardice, though. In fact, it was likely cowardice.

Regis didn't let himself hesitate in the doorway. If he did, he would never take another step.

Inside, the mausoleum was full of thick silence, broken only by the echo of his footfalls. This was the place where the Caelums—the most modern Caelums—were laid to rest. Some kings of old had their tombs spread about Lucis. Once upon a time the locations had been strategic: they were guardians of their kingdom, even in death, scattered through the land. By this age, most meaning had been lost and most of the more recent kings were simply laid to rest inside Insomnia, alongside their family.

The oldest were in the front. Regis passed them by, one by one, counting off names of ancestors he hardly knew he had. Brass name plates marked the walls in a grid. Those were the supposedly less-important people: the wives, the siblings who never wore the crown. On the floor were the grand sarcophagi of past kings, each adorned with a likeness, carved in stone, of its occupant.

Regis passed them all by, his fingers brushing stone and metal until the names grew familiar. From the last sarcophagus, his father's face in stone stared up at him. The final resting place of Mors Lucis Caelum. An empty space lay beside him; a potent reminder of where Regis fit in the grand scheme of things.

But here was a mistake.

Those of greatest importance were meant to reside on the floor, where they couldn't be missed by any visitors. Yet _she_ was sealed behind the wall to the left.

She should have been there, in the empty space that was meant to be his.

Regis stopped short of the plaque.

 _Aulea Caelum_

 _Beloved Queen_

 _706 - 735_

It was just as terrible as it had been months ago. This time, though, there weren't even any flowers. Each name plate held a vase; they were all empty, now, every single one in the mausoleum. Most of the occupants of the tombs had long since faded from the memories of anyone still living. Yet here was Aulea. Her husband, her children, her friends survived her, still, but she was forgotten, already.

 _I meant to forget_ , Regis realized. _I tried extraordinarily hard._

He shut his burning eyes. How could he do that to her? How could he do that to _them_? Of all the things she would have wanted… she would have certainly expected him to _remember_ her. Was that so hard?

But the truth was that it _was_ hard. It was more difficult than anything he had yet accomplished.

That was a poor reason not to do it, however.

"I ought have brought something for her…" Regis opened his eyes. They fixed immediately on Aulea's name, again, though he spoke to Clarus.

Clarus stepped forward, touching his arm. When Regis managed to pull his eyes from her plaque, it was to find his friend holding out a handful of flowers.

"You—" His eyes flicked to Clarus' face. Where had he found those? _When_ had he found them? Surely, his hands had been empty when they left the castle together. Regis decided not to ask. It didn't matter much, anyway. What mattered was that Clarus was there and he had, once again, thought of what Regis had neglected. "Thank you."

He took the flowers and stepped forward to arrange them in the vase. They were Chionodoxa; Regis only knew the name because she had told him. Her favorite flower. He was surprised Clarus remembered, but, then again, she had always been outspoken with her opinions.

The little purple-blue flowers bloomed in early spring, sprouting up from beneath the snow and bringing the first hint of warmth and life back to Insomnia after a cold winter. She always wanted to go out and see them, every year. Even when she wasn't well, she went out in spite of the cold. Except, this year, she had no chance.

Flowers settled, Regis traced his fingers over the clean-cut block lettering of her name. Four months he had spent trying not to think of her, selfishly trying to avoid the pain by pretending it had no source. No more.

"Forgive me, my love," he whispered. "I never meant to neglect you."

He leaned against the wall, letting his head tip forward and feeling the stone cool against his forehead.

"I miss you _so much_ … I thought, perhaps, the hole might be more bearable if I avoided it." He shut his eyes and let the words fall out. Words he had told Clarus he wasn't going to say. Words he had told _himself_ he wasn't going to say. "It did no good. Indeed, it did more harm than good."

"I have rather made a mess of things. Still, after all this time, I know not how to carry on without you. We spent too long together, you know." His palm pressed flat against the metal of the plate. Somehow it felt like he was closer to her, that way.

 _Only a shell remains_ , the bitter voice in the back of his head reminded him.

He pushed it away.

"I cannot recall a time when we were not together. You… you are in all my oldest memories. My greatest memories." He dragged his fingers over the metal, catching the edge and digging his fingernails into it. "And now I cannot make myself believe that there will ever be another great memory. All that joy is in my past."

Regis clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, fighting the tears that welled. Before his shut eyed, images played:

Aulea crouched in the snow, wrapped in a robe but barefoot because she had sneaked from their rooms against her doctor's instructions. He had searched high and low before finding her there, but when he had, all harsh words had died on his lips. Her fingers brushed the pale blue petals of Chionodoxa. She had smiled up at him and he had forgotten to scold her.

Aulea stretched out in the bed, fast asleep as he slipped away to attend a morning council. She had been half his size and somehow she had always taken up three-quarters of the bed. Even then, the blankets had twisted up around her from nighttime shifting. It had been a small miracle she had never woken herself. Only him.

Aulea wearing a white dress with little lace flowers running down the back and pooling at her feet. White flowers crowned her. The tears sparkled in her eyes and caught on her lashes while she beamed at him. He had never seen her so happy as she had been that day.

The tears Regis had been fighting spilled from his eyes. He clutched at the nameplate as if he would tear it off the wall to reach her body. His shoulders shook, but no sound escaped him.

He had no concept of the time he spent standing there, pressed against the wall that Aulea was sealed behind. He didn't hear when Clarus slipped away to give him the time for himself. Indeed, he had all but forgotten that anyone else was there with him in the first place.


	17. A Father's Face

The following morning when he woke, Regis felt no better for his visit to Aulea's grave. Indeed, he may well have felt worse. His eyes were dry and aching. His head felt as if he was struggling to overcome a head cold and a hangover, both.

With a groan, he lifted his hands to press his palms against his eyes and rolled out of bed. At least he had slept, some. Come to think of it, he had slept an unusual amount. No dreams had haunted his nighttime rest and, as far as he could recall, he hadn't woken once from the time his head hit the pillow until dawn.

The state of his eating habits was rather less favorable. Had he eaten anything, the night before? He recalled Clarus coming and guiding him gently from Aulea's grave after an indeterminate amount of time. He recalled _looking_ at the dinner that Weskham had brought up for him, but in spite of their best efforts he couldn't face it.

Regis crossed the cold tile floor on bare feet and entered the bathroom to splash water on his face. When he straightened and stared at himself in the mirror, it was to find—with very little surprise—that he looked awful.

Between the two of them, Clarus and Weskham had spent months trying to coax him to face Aulea in some shape or form. Now they had finally succeeded and, after last night, he wouldn't have been surprised if they sorely regretted it. Had it really done him any good?

It did little good to dwell on it, now. He had been to visit Aulea and he would do so again. The next time he would collect the flowers himself, before the last of the Chionodoxa had faded. Whether or not that really improved anything was irrelevant. And he had more important things to worry about than his own obsession with death.

Weskham arrived when Regis was half dressed and still looking more than a little ill. He brought a bright red smoothie in a tall glass, and Regis drank it without question. Somehow, while Regis was distracted with that, Weskham managed to transform him back into a king. When he looked in the mirror next, it was to find himself staring back out at him as if nothing had happened.

"Has Clarus arrived, yet?" Regis asked as they stepped into the hall together.

"No, Sire," Weskham said. "Though he's not yet late, either. There are still two hours before court."

Regis nodded, continuing down the hall without pause. He didn't realize he was following the sound of a baby crying until he was stopped outside of the nursery.

"Your Majesty—"

He stopped, turning just outside the cracked open nursery door, to find that Clarus _had,_ in fact, arrived. Only just, to all appearances.

"Kain Scisco has requested a meeting at the earliest possible convenience." Clarus stopped just in front of him.

Regis frowned. Behind him, from the nursery, he could hear the continued cries of one of his children. Though he wanted little more than to enter and find out why, he knew Kain was in charge of the investigation into Phoenix Incorporated. Could it be they had found something at last?

He glanced at Weskham. "Two hours before court, you say?"

"Yes, Sire."

Regis turned back to Clarus. If they could have this sorted out immediately then he might just have a moment to see his children, first. One minute standing and listening to a crying child and already it was fraying at his nerves. He _needed_ to fix it. "Then there is time now, if everyone can be assembled."

The sound of crying was growing louder.

"Send word—" Regis turned to look over his shoulder and found Crea coming from the nursery, holding Reina. She pushed the child unceremoniously into his arms and the bawling ceased.

Regis blinked. He looked from Crea to his daughter. Little Reina sniffled and whined, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks streaked with tears, but she didn't scream.

Crea shot him a mischievous smile, then curtsied. "Sorry for the interruption, Your Majesty." She ducked back into the nursery as if nothing unusual had happened.

He brushed tears from Reina's cheeks and pressed his lips to her forehead. Had that really just happened? His little girl, crying as if her life was at stake, and all problems ceased to be as soon as she was in his arms? For months he had been trying to learn to soothe them with mixed results. It seemed he would never be as successful as Crea or the other nursemaids, and yet—

"Your Majesty?" Clarus prompted, breaking through Regis' thoughts.

"Yes?" Regis didn't look up. Reina stared at him with great blue eyes and reached up to grab his beard with both hands. He let her. She could tear the whole thing out, if that was what her little heart desired.

"You were saying…?" Clarus tried again.

Regis pulled his eyes away from his little princess and looked up at last. The smile he wore for Reina lingered on his features. "I apologize, Clarus. I have completely forgotten what we were talking about."

"Meeting with Kain Scisco," Clarus said.

"Ah, yes." Regis winced as Reina pulled on a handful of his beard. "Send for the council. If they can be assembled in short notice, we can commence in half an hour."

"Of course, Your Majesty." Clarus bowed.

"The council chambers will suffice. I will meet you there."

Clarus bowed once more before turning and retreating down the hallway. Regis resettled Reina in his arms. He could just take her with him, surely. She was happier that way, after all, and if she was quiet then there was no reason she shouldn't attend the council meeting.

Except neither of the twins were ever quiet for long. Resigned, though disappointed, Regis turned back toward the nursery, planting another kiss on Reina's head as they entered.

He found Crea in the kitchen, along with another nursemaid, who was trying to convince Noctis to eat breakfast. Noctis deftly avoided the spoonful of green mush, keeping his mouth shut tight, but when he caught sight of Regis he was momentarily distracted. He kicked his little feet, bounced up and down in his highchair, and banged on the tray table with open hands and a wide smile on his face. His nursemaid took advantage of the distraction and stuck the spoon in his mouth.

The transformation was immediate. From happy, smiling baby to disturbed and betrayed. His little brow furrowed, his mouth stretched in a grimace, and green mush spilled down his chin.

Regis laughed.

"Good morning, Little Prince." He stooped to give Noctis a kiss and the motion managed to dislodge Reina's hands from his beard.

"Good morning, Your Majesty." Crea still looked smug.

"Good morning, Your Majesty—!" The other nursemaid hastened to her feet and gave a fumbling curtsy.

Regis lifted a hand. "Please, do not trouble yourself. My son's breakfast is much more important."

She lowered back into her seat, though she continued to shoot him covert glances, as if prepared to leap to her feet and try again at the least notice from him.

Regis stepped away, hoping that if he did so she would calm down. Instead he addressed Crea, who was, by now, so comfortable in his presence that it might have been called complacence. "Crea. Will you explain what just occurred?"

"With Reina?" Crea asked, sounding surprised though he knew she couldn't be. She had been laughing silently to herself since it had happened.

"Indeed."

"We're having a grumpy morning," Crea said, as if this answered anything.

Regis tilted his head and looked down his nose at her. It was a look that would have made anyone else squirm with discomfort. Crea just laughed. He should never have let her see how uncomfortable the subject of breast milk made him.

"Babies have bad days like everyone else, but we heard your voice outside and she quieted for just a moment… and then started screaming all the louder when you didn't come inside. So we decided to go find you." Crea wiggled her fingers at Reina, who was contentedly laying her head against Regis' shoulder. "Sometimes you just need your dad."

It wasn't a possibility that he had really considered, before. For all eight months of their, admittedly short, lives, Regis had been preparing himself to accept that he would always be second-best in the eyes of his children. They would always want their nanny first, or the nursemaids that they were familiar with. Regis would always just be That Man with a Beard Who Comes by, Sometimes.

Or so he had thought.

"Reina," Crea said in a sing-song voice.

Reina lifted her head from Regis' shoulder and looked up at Crea. "Where's Daddy?" Crea asked.

Reina turned her head immediately, settling her gaze, instead, on Regis as she tilted back to look at him. Regis gaped at her, lips parted and eyes wide. When had she learned _that_?

"That's right, Reina!" Crea applauded, then straightened. She looked up at Regis, even more smug, if possible, than before. "Told you."

"How—?"

"Kids learn fast, Your Majesty," Crea said.

"You are growing up too fast, my dear." He pulled Reina into a hug, kissing the top of her head. "You will simply have to stop. Right at this moment. Before you grow any bigger."

"You can't fool her, Your Majesty." Crea turned away, moving to the fridge to retrieve another container of baby food—something _not_ green—and passing it off to the other nursemaid. "If they stopped now, you'd miss everything yet to come. They haven't even started walking."

Regis held Reina out in front of him and considered her seriously. This age was perfect: sweet, tiny, just learning to move about and finally gaining a grasp of language. But what was to say that the next stages wouldn't be just as perfect? They were bound to be on their feet in a few more months. Soon they would be making their own words, pointing and asking for things, communicating in their own disjointed way. And after that… a myriad of new experiences.

But that was getting ahead of himself. For now, all he could conclude was that he wanted to experience it all. There was no rush, however.

* * *

The conference room was silent, all sounds of shuffling papers and rustling clothes fading as eyes turned toward Regis. The twelve members of his ruling council were seated on either side of the long table with him at one end. At the opposite end, where no chair sat, stood Kain Scisco. He was a short, slight man with a receding hairline and eyes too small for his face, but if previous reports were to be believed, his ample head housed an equally ample brain.

Regis' eyes were fixed on Kain. "Mr Scisco, the state of your investigation.

"Your Majesty, there is less to report than I would like. Phoenix Incorporated persists in making our work time-consuming and tedious. Each week they dodge our searches and skirt around the larger issues. With the latest pass, they plead for more time to assemble the requested data and paperwork," Kain said. "I fear I must admit I am at my wits end about what to do. They simply have too much power."

"We need to press them harder, Your Majesty. Every day we allow them to dally only gives them more time to falsify and cover up," Kelmis insisted, not rising from his seat but leaning forward to look at Regis.

"I have said it before and I will say it again," Aldebrand pointed an emphatic finger in the air. "We should simply shut them down until this is through. If they are not permitted to do business until this investigation is concluded, then they will be more compliant."

"Shutting down the single largest manufacturer in Lucis is _not_ a good idea," Clarus said with an air of forced clam. "The whole kingdom relies on them."

"They are playing us for fools!" Aldebrand insisted.

"You cannot just shut down a company due to feeling indignant, Aldebrand," Hamon drawled. "There is due process. And there is enough reasonable doubt that we can hardly justify jailing the lot of them."

"Pressure can be applied without completely halting their production," Regis sat forward in his chair and the others fell silent. "If restrictions are imposed then they will be hindered enough to take note."

"You mean to play at their game, Your Majesty?" Clarus asked.

"Indeed. Mr Scisco, we will give your team full jurisdiction. You have the freedom to expand your numbers as necessary. Clarus, assign to them a number of Crownsguards—in case anything should get out of hand—and let us treat Phoenix as we might any other criminal investigation. Give the Crownsguard the right to arrest any who impede the course of the investigation, and instruct that they exercise it liberally." Regis' gaze moved from Kain to Clarus as he spoke.

"It will be done, Your Majesty," Clarus said.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Kain bowed. "If I might make one further request?"

Regis gestured to indicate he should continue.

"If Master Amicitia would assign to us an officer who has investigative experience, it would be of great help."

Regis looked to Clarus, who passed his hand over his chin thoughtfully. "There are several who come to mind. Suffice it to say that this is a simple request to fulfill, Your Majesty."

"Very well. You shall have a team to join you, Mr Scisco. For the start, twenty should serve your purpose, but I will leave it up to you to decide if this number must be larger. Direct all requests of this nature to Master Amicitia or—barring his availability—Marshal Leonis," Regis said.

"Yes, Your Majesty," said Kain.

"In the meantime, we will draft the paperwork to give you the necessary power over Phoenix Incorporated. Do prepare yourself, Mr Scisco. I expect a great many complaints to be filed in response; as head of the investigation, these will be directed to you."

"Of course, Your Majesty. I will deal with them."

"Use this power wisely, Mr Scisco," Regis said. "The people clamor for action. They must have their justice."

The riots of the first few months were a thing of the past. All those who had been hospitalized were now released, though some, like Spero Perdita, were still not entirely recovered. Regardless, they deserved closure: for themselves and for those they had lost.

His mind lighted on Elaisse Perdita. That one could lose their love and life to such a _stupid_ misdeed… it was nonsensical. All he could promise was justice, but it wouldn't bring back those who had lost their lives.

"I will, Your Majesty. Gods willing, we will have preliminary results soon," said Kain.

" 'Soon' is a satisfactory start, Mr Scisco." Clarus leaned forward in his chair. "But once this power shift is settled, we expect a more concrete estimate. We look forward to hearing from you within a month."

Kain bowed. "As you say, Master Amicitia."

And that was that, for the time being. Until then, all they could do was wait.


	18. Facing Ghosts

The next time, Regis visited the mausoleum of his own volition.

The snows were gone from Insomnia, but there were a few Chionodoxa lingering in the shade under the big trees in the gardens. He spent thirty minutes seeking them out until he couldn't find a single one more. By that time he had a suitable fistful of flowers and he went to replace the ones that were fading in the vase at Aulea's tomb.

He couldn't think of anything to say to her, this time, so he just stood and stared at the flowers, feeling the empty space inside him that should have had Aulea inside, like picking at a half-healed sore. How was this supposed to help?

Spero said he should talk to her but, then again, Spero was mad. Maybe Regis was, too.

In the end he pulled himself away and returned to the castle, feeling worse for his efforts, just like he had the time before. He passed by dozens of crownsguards and servants on his way, and each one greeted him with the same faithful confidence that they always did. Had they really no idea? He could hold the kingdom, fulfill every expectation placed on him, but inside he was nothing. He didn't even know where he was walking until he reached it.

Though, in hindsight, it was the same place he always walked when left to his own devices. He ought to have known.

The door to the nursery lay open. Inside, Crea stood and discussed bedtimes with one of the nursemaids, but Regis' gaze was drawn to the child in her arms. He stood in the doorway for a moment. Noctis looked over Crea's shoulder at Regis and stuck his fist in his own mouth. Regis smiled, bittersweet. They _were_ Aulea's eyes.

"Mistress—" The nursemaid drew Crea's attention to the door and Regis.

"Your Majesty," Crea said. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Indeed. I had not expected to find you here, so late." Similarly, he hadn't expected to find either of his children awake.

"Oh, we're being difficult where sleep is concerned, these days." Crea patted Noctis' back. "Even nursemaids need reinforcements."

"Is anything amiss?" Regis asked.

"Nothing unusual. They're transitioning between naps, again, and going through a lot of development. Hopefully the sleep trouble will go away in a few weeks."

Regis nodded, but continued to linger in the doorway. She considered him for a moment, before turning back to the other nursemaid.

"Why don't you take a break?" She suggested to the older woman. "Since Reina finally fell asleep—I'm sure His Majesty and I can convince Noctis to do the same before I leave you with them for the night. You can come back in a couple hours."

"Thank you, Mistress, I will." The nursemaid bobbed, stepped toward the door, stopped to curtsy to Regis, and then slipped out.

Regis stepped inside fully, dropping into the armchair by the door. Crea handed him Noctis without asking; she knew, by then, that the answer was he _always_ wanted to hold his son. He held Noct up in his lap, letting him support his own weight on his legs.

It was hard to believe how much Noctis had grown in the past five months. He crawled, now—or, at least, he dragged himself around on his stomach, but managed to reach his destination just as well as Reina did. Now he bounced, letting his knees bend before straightening back up again as Regis supported his weight. They were both getting so big. But every day they grew was another that Aulea had missed.

Across the room, Crea resettled the blankets in Reina's crib and took a seat in the armchair nearby. He was used to seeing her sit there, reading her book and giving him instructions while he struggled to learn how to calm a fussy baby, but tonight she did neither of those things. She folded her hands in her lap and considered him in silence, like she was waiting for something.

She was going to ask him about Aulea, now. That was why she had sent the other nursemaid away, so she wouldn't be seen questioning the king and stepping out of her position as nanny to the prince and princess. Though it didn't bother him if she acted less his servant and more his friend, something else did trouble him. Everyone else wanted to talk to him about Aulea, so why not Crea as well? That, now that he thought about it, was precisely the point. In the last five months, she had never pried into his mourning. Not when he fell asleep in the nursery, nor when he appeared in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. The nursery had always been a place of peace, where he didn't have to think about Aulea or worry about everyone fussing over him. The only people fussing, here, were Reina and Noctis.

In spite of his surety that she had noted something about his demeanor that would push her to ask, all she said was: "You'll want to hold him laying down or against your shoulder. Otherwise he'll never fall asleep."

Regis, surprised but not objectionate, shifted Noctis so he rest against his shoulder. For a few minutes there were no sounds but Noctis' occasional babble. Crea never asked the question.

He shifted in his chair, suddenly restless. She _should_ have asked. She should have asked because, for the first time in five months, he wanted to tell someone and Crea, at least, might understand. Perhaps not in the same way that Spero understood, but she also wasn't crazy. She was probably just waiting for _him_ to ask, instead.

"How did you do it?" Regis asked, at length. "You lost your mother and your daughter in short succession. How did you handle it?"

Crea raised her eyebrows at him. Perhaps she hadn't been waiting, at all.

"Truth?" She asked. He nodded. "Very badly. Looking back, I'm amazed I got through at all. I was close to the edge for a long time. But I had started working… and I took on too many jobs just so I would never be at home. I think the only reason I made it was because one of the families I worked for had this old governess… she was like a mentor and a mother when I had neither."

"And you talked to her?"

"Of course."

Was that what it all came down to? Clarus, Weskham, Spero—even Cor—they all wanted him to talk, but it seemed pointless. They already knew. They knew what had happened and if they didn't know what he was feeling then he couldn't explain it to them. It wasn't as if they hadn't known her, as well.

But Crea didn't know. Perhaps she had met Aulea in passing, in those last few months. Shamed as he was to admit it, Regis had no idea when Crea had been hired.

Regis shifted in his chair, still holding Noctis against his shoulder. He fixed his eyes on a spot of tile—a white fleck in the black stone—and he spoke. It didn't really matter if she had been hired before or after, if she had heard half the story from the other staff. He was tired to poking and prodding at the sore spot. He wanted to stab it and bleed out the pain.

"Aulea was never in great health. When we were children she often took ill and would be confined to bed. Later she was diagnosed with an immunodeficiency disorder, but I always loved her, regardless. As a young teenager I used to sneak in through her window to bring her flowers and presents when she could not go out." Regis smiled at the thought. More than once, a rather young Prince of Lucis had been forced to drop out of the second-story window and into a bed of bushes to avoid detection from her parents. He had always returned home to the Citadel, a little scratched up with twigs and leaves stuck in his hair, where Clarus had given him that _look_ that meant he knew exactly what had happened. Clarus never spoke a word.

Those days were long gone, now. His smile faded.

"Her doctors said that pregnancy should be safe… that the chances of passing it on to the children was slim, as well. Nevertheless, the strain had her laid up in bed for the months before birth, and after…" Regis swallowed hard. The edges of his vision blurred and he held a little more tightly to Noctis. This was what he had been avoiding for five months. Not just saying it but thinking about it in any shape or form. Somehow, putting words to it only made it more real.

"After, she never recovered." His voice came out a whisper. The first tear streaked down his face and disappeared into his beard, and the others followed soon after.

He could still see her lying in bed. For three months she had wasted away, growing thinner by the week. Her skin turned waxy, her hair brittle and weak. Toward the end, she had hardly been able to hold the children unless _he_ was holding _her_.

"I watched her fade away. I held her hand while she took her last breath in that bed, and now I cannot bring myself to face it." He lifted his voice and it cracked. Undignified, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He bowed his head, held his son tight, and let the tears fall on the nursery floor.

He didn't hear Crea leave her chair, but he felt her hands on his arms and opened his eyes to find her kneeling on the floor before him. Why did everyone think talking about it would make something feel better? He felt worse now than he had in months. He should never have said those words, never have given form to his ghosts.

Crea leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, Noctis and all. It didn't fix anything, but now, at least, he knew that she knew. She knew exactly what he had meant for her to know. No more uncertainty. No more guessing. Just the words he had put between them.

She remained until the tears had stopped and Regis could nearly breathe again, then she sat back on her heels and looked at him. It wasn't sympathy on her face, like Clarus might have worn, but something more like regret and understanding.

"I'm glad you told me," she said.

Regis dropped his head again. "I have no yet decided whether I am."

"I know it hurts," she squeezed his shoulders. "Just like taking out a splinter that's been there too long. Maybe you can start to heal, now."

"How can I heal when my heart has been torn out?"

"It's not," Crea said.

He looked up at her. How could she make that claim, if she didn't feel what he felt? He had thought she understood—that she _did_ feel what he felt. Perhaps he had been wrong.

He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but he stopped. She was smiling at him, in spite of look of annoyance working across his face.

"Your heart is in your arms." Crea released his shoulder and smoothed her hand over Noctis' hair. She turned and looked over her shoulder, directing his attention to where Reina lay asleep in her crib. "And over there."

Regis shut his mouth. Noctis had his head resting against Regis' shoulder and one little fist balled in the front of Regis' suit. He was fast asleep.

"And they're not the only thing, Your Majesty." Crea rose to her feet. "I know she's gone and nothing can ever change that… but that doesn't mean everything good that ever happened is now bad. You have all those memories of her. Even if you can never make new ones, the old ones are still sweet."

Regis shook his head, leaning back in his chair. "The only memories I have are dark ones."

"Then find someone who had bright ones."

He looked up at her with an unspoken question.

"Didn't you have friends who knew her?" She asked.

"Of course. Clarus and Weskham grew up with us. Cor less so, but he was there later on."

"Let them share their memories, then."

"Theirs are, doubtless, darkened just the same as mine."

"Have you asked?"

Regis shook his head.

She put her hands on her hips, considering him thoroughly. For all she was the nanny to his children, he had never registered just how well it fit her until then. Now she looked prepared to mother _him_.

"Have you spoken to them at all?"

Again he shook his head. "They mourn her and I mourn her. What good will combining out misery do?"

Crea huffed. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, you're far too clever to be so stupid."

Regis raised his eyebrows at her. The only person taken to calling him stupid was Clarus. It didn't help that she had prefaced it with a title and respect, but he was too surprised to be indignant, all the same.

"Haven't you ever heard anyone say 'misery loves company'? It's not just for fun. It's the truth. When two people share the same grief, it brings them together. There's a connection there. I'm not going to tell the king what to do, but if I were you, I would take advantage of it." Crea folded her arms over her chest. "I guarantee they want to share it, too."

"They just want to haul me out of this pit."

"I have little doubt that your friends are faithful and selfless, but that doesn't change the fact that they're _people_ and people _hurt_ when they lose someone. They'll want to share it. They want to feel better, too."

He gave her a doubtful look. Five months had passed. Clarus and Weskham had probably already dealt with this in their own way. They hardly needed him for that.

"If I'm wrong I'll resign."

"I would much prefer you did not."

"The point remains." Crea looked as if she was fighting not to smile. "That if _I_ were the king, _I_ would take advantage of my resources and _talk to my friends_."

It was the closest she would get to telling the king what to do. He suspected that, were he a child in her care, she would have sent him to his room to think about his poor choices.

So he went. And he sent word to those friends who had known Aulea.

* * *

A/N: Hi everyone! As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've changed the rating of this fic to M. After some consideration, I decided this was the safer bet for some themes and later events of the story. You can read the details at the top of chapter 1, but the long and short of it is that if you've been reading thus far and enjoying the fic (and have no triggers you're worried about), then nothing much is going to change. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks for reading, see you next week!


	19. Azure Skies

_It is late_ , Regis told himself, as he hovered outside Weskham's door. _Much too late for a social call._

 _If I do not do this now, I never will_ , his more reasonable half insisted.

That, of course, was just the problem. If he never did it then he never had to face this. The last time he had pushed himself to take the next suggested step, it hadn't helped. All he had earned for his troubles had been a sore head and aching eyes.

Still, he hesitated. He raised his hand to knock but his knuckles never made contact with the wood. Astrals, why was it so difficult just to knock on his friend's door? He pressed his palm against it, instead, leaning against the wall.

 _This is ridiculous. Am I the King of Lucis or not?_

Regis squared his shoulders and knocked before he could stop himself. He waited but a moment before Weskham came to the door, still dressed in his shirt and vest but barefoot on the tile floor.

"Regis." He raised his eyebrows. "Is something wrong?"

Many things were wrong and he knew full well. Regis, however, resisted the desire to tell him that. Weskham wasn't asking in general; he wanted to know what Regis was doing outside his door at such an unusual hour.

If he had been there for some concrete reason—because there was an issue in the kingdom or the household, because he needed Weskham's particular set of skills—he wouldn't have thought twice. As it stood, calling someone—even a close friend—from their room in the middle of the night for no better reason than to talk about his dead wife seemed shaky ground, at best.

 _What the hell am I doing? This could not have waiting until morning?_

His more reasonable half intervened before he could flee. Between the two of them, Clarus and Weskham had been trying to convince Regis to talk about Aulea for five months. Now that he had finally worked up the courage to do so, they were unlikely to spurn him.

"I… sought some company…" Regis said. "That is, in any case, if it is not too inconvenient."

"Of course not, Regis. You know I encourage you to call on me at any time, no matter the reason."

"Then perhaps you would see if Cor is willing to join us. I…" He hesitated a moment before plowing onward. "I am prepared to do what you have all been hinting at for months. I will do my best to remember her but… it may be a long night."

Weskham was frozen for a moment. Surprise, probably. After five months, why wouldn't he be surprised?

"I'll get Cor," he said at last. "Shall we meet in your rooms?"

* * *

A phone rang in the dark of night, it's persistent chirping jarring Clarus from an unsettling dream about a long climb up a twisted mountain and an unending fall. He groped for his phone on the bedside table, somehow managed to hit the correct button to answer it, and pressed it against his ear without looking to see who was calling.

"Yes?"

It was Weskham's voice on the other end. " _I'm sorry to wake you, Clarus, but I thought you should know that Regis wants to talk about Aulea at last."_

It took a stunned moment for the information to sink into his brain.

" _Clarus? Are you there?"_

"Yes—of course—I'll be right over."

" _I thought you might. I'll see you soon. We'll be in his new rooms."_

The phone beeped in his ear and Clarus was left sitting up in bed and trying to make his brain work on his own.

In the bed beside him, Fidelia shifted. "You're going back to the Citadel at this time of night?"

She didn't sound it, but he suspected she was irked. There was a limit to even her patience and after five months it was beginning to wear thin. Clarus glanced at the phone in his hands. It was only midnight, but the likelihood was that he wouldn't be back until tomorrow night. Nevertheless, he would go.

"I must." He threw the blankets back and slipped from bed. "Regis needs me."

* * *

Cor wasn't the only one who joined Weskham in Regis' room. Clarus arrived, dressed and awake but looking a little bit harried. Regis should have guessed Weskham would call him.

"Clarus—I did not intend to pull you from your family for this," Regis said.

"You didn't." Clarus shut the door behind himself and approached, holding a plastic bag in his off hand. Weskham and Cor had already laid claim to the pair of armchairs, which had been dragged across to the bed, so Clarus dropped the bag unceremoniously on the bed beside Regis and followed shortly thereafter. "I did it all by myself."

"You aren't planning to get us drunk, are you?" Cor leaned forward, reaching for the bag.

"Of course not." Clarus snatched it away before Cor could look inside. " _Some_ of us have to work in the morning."

"Let's not bicker in front of the king, children," Weskham said. "What did you bring, Clarus?"

Clarus reached into the bag and pulled out a tall glass bottle full of blue liquid. He passed it to Regis, who turned it over in his hands, smiling absently.

"How ever did you find this? I thought they had stopped making them," Regis said.

"I have my methods," Clarus said, passing a bottle to Cor and Weskham and balling up the empty bag once he had taken his own.

Cor's brow furrowed at he read the label. "Azure Sky? What is this?"

"Have you truly never seen one?" Regis asked.

"He's too young, Regis," Clarus said.

"Well, you have missed an important part of our childhood, Cor." Regis moved to pop the top off of his own bottle.

"Wait—" Clarus held up a hand. Regis paused and Clarus gave him a conspiratorial look. "Don't forget to shake it."

"Ah, yes," Weskham said.

Cor glanced between them. "What is the purpose of shaking it?"

"They get deposits in the bottom, sometimes," Weskham said. "It redistributes the flavor more evenly."

Weskham gave his bottle a few vigorous shakes and Cor followed suit. On the bed, Regis casually upended his once or twice with more care and Clarus inconspicuously avoided doing what he had just suggested.

"That should do," Weskham said to Cor. "Now pull the tab and have a drink. It used to be Her Majesty's favorite drink. In our younger years, this was a regular summer tradition—we'd sit out on the Citadel steps and wait for Clarus to bring them, because he was the only one with a car and—"

Carbonated blue liquid sprayed across the room, drenching Cor and his armchair. Weskham, sitting closest, ducked away and covered his face with his arm. Clarus threw his head back and roared with laughter. Even Regis cracked a smile.

When the laughter faded, Cor was sitting there, dripping blue soda and looking stunned. He had been working a serious job for too long if he had become so gullible. Once upon a time he never would have believed anything the others told him so readily and he certainly wouldn't have opened his bottle first.

"Why…" Cor looked at the half-empty bottle. "Do I even trust you anymore?"

Clarus chortled. He popped the tab on his own bottle more cautiously, let the pressure equalize, then opened it.

"Because you're still an idiot," Clarus said.

Cor glared at him.

Regis lifted a hand. "It is nothing personal, Cor. What you are missing—what dear Clarus has neglected to explain to you—is that this is precisely what he did to Aulea when she was about twelve."

"I admit, your reaction was much more satisfying," Clarus laughed. "Aulea looked like I had betrayed her."

"If you'll excuse me… I'd rather not be sticky all night." Cor rose, setting his bottle down on the end table and crossing to the bathroom to clean himself up.

"If I recall correctly," Weskham said. "She got even with you later on."

"She always did," Regis said, prying the top off his own bottle with care. The first sip fizzed on his tongue, tangy and sweet in some bizarre combination of fruit and cream. He lifted his bottle and stared at the label, letting the soda bubble in his mouth while he remembered all the years that went along with the taste. All the memories, now tinted bittersweet.

"Of course she did," Clarus said. "You think she could grow up between us and not learn to hold her own? The press loved to paint her as an innocent: ' _King Regis Marries Childhood Friend: an Invalid'_. It should have said: ' _Aulea Finally Gets Fed-Up Waiting on the King and Plans a Wedding Without Him'._ "

Regis choked on his Azure. Clarus slapped him on the back. When he could breathe again, he said: "That is precisely what happened."

"You didn't want to get married?" Cor reappeared from the bathroom, holding a hand towel.

"Of course I did," said Regis, "But there was always one more thing in the way. I never did ask her properly… it was agreed for a long time that we would be married, but I never proposed to her. She simply told me one day that we were to be married the following summer and that was that."

He smiled sadly. He should have asked her. She had wanted a proper proposal and he'd never found the time to do it. There was a ring involved, at some point—she had chosen it herself and he bought it, because she was tired of waiting for him to make up his mind. It certainly took all the uncertainty out of the whole matter, but she never did seem to grasp that it was very worrisome to try to find the perfect ring for the perfect woman.

"You were there for that," Clarus said to Cor.

"No one ever told me these things." Cor wiped down his chair with the hand towel and sat back down. At last he had the chance to try his drink instead of spraying it all over his face and he did so. He looked thoughtful, swirling the carbonated liquid around his mouth once before swallowing. "That's… peculiar." He shook his head and set the bottle down. "I must have been, what, seventeen at the time? Sixteen, when this was all being planned and discussed? I didn't see much of her until after she moved in."

"So she was mostly Queen, to you," Weskham said.

Cor nodded. "She was an admirable queen, Regis. The people loved her—everyone loved her—and when she stood beside you, she looked like she belonged."

Regis wedged his fingernail beneath the label on his bottle and peeled up the corner.

"That's true," Weskham said. "There was always something about Aulea that made her seem royal—she didn't have that heritage or the upbringing, but she certainly had the bearing."

Regis fingered the loose edge of the label and breathed levelly in spite of how his heart pounded in his chest. The conversation lulled for a moment and he knew they were waiting to see if he would speak. If he didn't they would fill it, again. It could have gone on like that indefinitely, if he willed it. They wouldn't have even complained in the morning if it turned out he had called them all from their beds for nothing. He couldn't do that to them, though.

"She was my better half, I believe," Regis said quietly, still looking at the bubbling blue liquid in his bottle. "I was lost to her the moment we met, though I did not know until later. We must have been eight or nine—during a time when everyone else in my life was wont to bow to me and 'Your Highness' me… she did not. She had that bearing about her, even then." He glanced up at Cor with a small nod. "It certainly did not come from me. After that she was all mischief and mayhem… as often as she was out of bed she was dragging me into trouble."

He leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes.

"She always did live her life to the fullest. I think she knew—she had an understanding beyond her age, a grasp on the concept of mortality before the concept of death had even crossed my mind—but she never let it hold her back. Quite the contrary. Every day with Aulea was an adventure—she would be laid up in bed one day, and the next tell me: 'drive faster, Regis—hit the accelerator and just _let go_. Do you feel it? That hitch in your chest when you crest the hill too fast and for a moment the wheels leave the ground… for a moment, you are _flying_.' That was life with her. The rest of us have too much time—we grow too caught up in all the details—but she had too little time to be dragged down. She wanted to fly every day she was able, and for my part, I am eternally grateful that she took me along for the ride, now and then."

Regis didn't notice the tears on his cheeks until he opened his eyes and glanced around the room. Cor had his head bowed, his hands clasped on the bottle of Azure in his lap like it was something precious. Weskham was watching Regis, a smile on his lips and a wet streak on his cheek.

To Regis' right, Clarus lifted his bottle, meeting Regis' gaze with overbright eyes. "To Aulea. May she soar higher now than ever before."

"To Aulea," Weskham echoed, Cor following a moment after, and lifted his bottle.

Regis lifted his Azure, looked at the peeling label, and saw her face.

"To Aulea," he whispered.


	20. Finger Foods

"We have gathered enough evidence to conclusively link Phoenix Incorporated to the dumping in sector seven. Indeed, I should say there is enough evidence to push them on obstruction and destruction of evidence, as well. Unfortunately… there is very little to link either of those things back to Kurick himself. Save for the fact that it happened in his company under his nose, nothing outright suggests he either knew about or condoned either of those things, let alone that he was the driving force behind them."

Regis tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair, looking down the length of the council table at Kain Scisco. Six months of investigation, six months of poking and prying and, more recently, actively impeding Phoenix Incorporated's ability to do business, and all they had accomplished was an agreement that the _company_ had dumped illegal waste inside the Wall. That was neither surprising, nor particularly enlightening.

"In your opinion, is it possible for this to have occurred without Kurick's express permission?" Regis asked.

"Honestly, Your Majesty, I don't believe it is. He appears to run a very tight operation. While he concerns himself very little with the inner-workings and his employees, nothing goes on that he doesn't seem to know about. There is no indication that any of his management would be so bold as to do this without him, but we can't seem to trace the orders."

Regis ran one hand over his beard, considering. So Phoenix had done their own clean-up. While Regis had been half-incapacitated by grief, Kurick had been destroying evidence.

He ground his teeth together; the only outward evidence of his annoyance manifest as a jutting of his jaw. That was his own damn fault. Now, however, was not the time to feel sorry for himself. Mistakes had been made, perhaps they had been unavoidable, but that hardly mattered, now. _Now_ he needed to act.

"You have searched all manner of correspondence?" He asked.

"Yes, Sire. My team has been combing through their email servers, company computers, and every scrap of paper we can find. So far nothing has turned up. The waste was theirs, it was dumped by company employees, but to all appearances no one told anyone to do so."

"Confiscate Kurick's computer—even his personal computer, if you must—and have them sift through that," Regis said.

"He won't like that," Kain said. "And I doubt we'll find anything. He's very careful."

Regis rested both his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers. "I harbor the same doubts, but we cannot afford to leave a single stone unturned. If nothing else, it will light a fire. Perhaps with due pressure we can encourage him to make a mistake."

"Yes, Sire." Kain bowed.

What they _really_ needed was inside information. An employee who either knew where to look, or still had some sort of email correspondence.

"In the meantime, have your team focus efforts on the employees. Question them individually. With how well Phoenix treats its people, I would be astounded if every one of them was loyal. It may be there are some willing to assist," Regis said.

"I'll have my team cross-reference Phoenix employees with those affected by the dumping and prioritize those. If anyone is going to give up company secrets, it will be someone who has already paid the price."

"Good." Regis gave a short nod. "See it done."

With the conclusion of their meeting, the council rose and bowed, filing out one by one, save Clarus. He watched Regis while Regis watched the closed doors—just staring without really seeing.

He _wanted_ the evidence to connect Kurick to the dumping. Strictly speaking, he didn't _need_ it. He could throw Kurick into jail on only their suspicions, but he didn't intend to. Doubtless, there had been kings in the past who might have done that sort of thing, but Regis worked on facts and if they couldn't procure facts then he would tie his own hands. However sure they were that Kurick _was_ guilty, without the evidence, he walked free. That meant hundreds of people who never saw justice for injuries caused; dozens of deaths where the murderer walked free.

It meant breaking his word to Spero.

"Regis?"

Regis blinked and looked to his friend. "Apologies, Clarus, I was merely thinking."

"We _will_ pin him down," Clarus said.

"We must." Regis pursed his lips. He stared down the empty table for a moment longer before rising to his feet. "Come. What time do we have?"

"Time for lunch." Clarus rose and followed him to the door.

For the first time in months, Regis was inclined to agree with him. He was tired of feeling as if his stomach was turning inside out for hunger and yet finding the mere thought of filling it revolting. He was tired of accepting that there was nothing he could do about it.

"Yes, I believe it is." Regis passed between the double doors of the conference room and turned down the hall. Clarus was looking at him with a furrow in his brow, like he didn't quite believe that Regis meant what he had said. Regis pressed the point. "And I grow tired of soup."

The furrow vanished and Clarus lifted his eyebrows instead. If his hairline hadn't already retreated so far, his brows might have met it.

"Avun." Regis motioned to his attendant, who had been waiting outside the council chamber. "Will you see to it that the dining room is prepared for lunch? We will be two for the meal."

If his attendant was at all surprised, he didn't show it. "Very good, Sire."

Clarus was less restrained.

"Dine with me?" Regis asked, in spite of the look of open surprise on Clarus' face.

"Of course," Clarus responded with only a moment's hesitation.

His surprise was understandable. Like his own bedroom, Regis hadn't been in the dining room since Aulea had passed. Once they had taken meals there regularly; he always made a point to sit down with her at least once during the day, no matter how busy he was, and she often appreciated having an excuse to escape their rooms without being hovered over. Now it was time to banish those ghosts. He doubted he could do it without Clarus.

They crossed the Citadel together, taking a more leisurely pace than Avunculus, who had gone on ahead. When they reached the dining hall, the crownsguards outside pulled the doors opened and they passed into the long room.

Regis halted, feeling the familiar lump stick in his throat. His eyes swept the room, taking in the tall, arching windows in the back wall and the long table of polished ebony. Two chairs sat at the table, one on either end. In spite of his best intentions, he couldn't avoid the pain associated with her empty chair.

"Your Majesty?"

Regis turned at the sound of a familiar voice and found Crea moving down the hall at an awkward pace. She walked half doubled-over, with her hands holding Reina's. Reina, dressed in a blue tulle dress and a miniscule pair of shoes, was toddling along on her own two feet. Four little white teeth showed in her smile and a giggle erupted with every other step.

The shadow of the dining hall vanished. Regis took a knee in the doorway and held his hands out.

"Reina, my dear! Who gave you permission to grow up so quickly?" He beamed.

She squealed, catching sight of him, and in her hurry to reach him faster she left her feet behind and tipped her whole upper body forward. Crea caught her, lifting her off her feet momentarily before setting her back down with the proper orientation.

"Gotta move your feet, Little Princess," Crea said. "No one else is going to do it for you."

"I beg to differ," Regis said. "If she does not succeed soon, I will retrieve her myself."

Crea turned her head up to grin at him. "You'll spoil them rotten, Your Majesty."

"That is my privilege."

Reina finally reached him. She pulled her hands free from Crea's and clutched at Regis' legs, instead. No sooner had her nanny released her than Regis scooped her up into his arms, straightening and holding her over his head.

"Ah, Little Princess, you must stop growing _this instant_."

She gave another joyous squeal; a gob of baby drool fell from her open mouth and his him squarely on the cheek.

Regis lowered her down, holding her at his hip instead and giving her a reproving look. "My dear, a princess _does not_ drool on her father."

Crea covered a laugh and passed him a handkerchief. "She's already proved you wrong."

"Yes, well…" Regis wiped his face and handed the handkerchief back.

"Sire, your lunch is ready to be served." Avunculus appeared in the doorway to the dining hall.

He had completely forgotten about lunch. It still didn't sound like a terrible idea, but he was never going to put Reina down.

"Will you join us for lunch?" Regis asked Crea. "Or must you return?"

Crea shrugged. "Joyce has Noctis and I doubt she needs me. But I feel I must warn you of two things."

Regis indicated that Avun should have a third spot set at the table before turning back to Crea. "Yes?"

"She will absolutely put her hands in your food, now—she still eats everything."

"Is that so?" He lifted Reina up to eye level, this time taking care _not_ to hold her over his face. "Well, you are welcome to as much of my lunch as you desire, my dear. Or we will simply feed you Clarus' lunch."

He shot Clarus a smile. Clarus, for his part, was looking wholly amused.

"And the second?" Regis asked, resettling Reina on his hip.

"I only own one type of fork, in my house." Crea was watching the servants set a third spot at the long table. There were no less than four forks beside the plate.

Clarus chuckled. "I'm sure we can set you straight."

Salad arrived once they were all—including Reina in Regis' lap—seated. To Regis' right, Crea inspected the series of flatware arranged beside her plate. He cleared his throat to attract her attention, then picked up his own salad fork with deliberation.

"Does it really make a difference?" She asked, copying him and inspecting the fork.

"The salad fork has a thicker left tine with a notch, designed to cut food that does not require a knife; the fish fork has wider, flatter tines to aid in lifting flakey fish without losing half of it; the dinner fork—" He stopped, catching the look on her face. "No. It makes no difference at all."

"That's what I thought." She took a bite of her salad, though he noted she did use the correct fork.

"When do they walk unassisted?" Clarus asked.

"Don't you have a son?" Crea answered his question with a question.

Reina fixed big eyes on Regis' plate and made a grab for a slice of tomato. It took her three tries to pick it up between thumb and forefinger before it moved toward her mouth.

"Don't let her put that whole thing in her mouth, Your Majesty," Crea said.

It was just as well she gave some instruction. Regis had been full prepared to let Reina do whatever she liked, but he caught the tomato before she had more than a corner of it in her mouth, and took it away. Reina whined.

"I do," Clarus confirmed.

Regis moved his plate away from the edge of the table as Reina grabbed for the tomato again. She leaned forward as far as she was able and, finding it still out of reach, pounded her hand against the table and cried. Regis looked up at Crea, entreating. She lifted her napkin to her lips, a poor effort to hide her growing smile, and motioned to the servant standing at her elbow.

"Would you bring a small plate for His Majesty?" The servant bobbed respectfully and hurried to do as she was bidden. To Clarus, Crea added: "And I take it your son walks?"

"He does walk," Clarus agreed. "And he did not when he came out, so sometime between birth and three years, he has learned to walk. That's about all I can say."

Regis gave him a reproachful look across the table.

"I daresay you'll forget when they began to walk in a few years, as well," Clarus said dryly.

The extra plate arrived. Reina grabbed it immediately and Regis was forced to move that, as well, lest it end up as shards on the floor.

"If you cut the tomato in small pieces, she'll eat them," Crea said.

Regis did as she instructed, putting the baby bite-sized pieces of tomato on the spare plate and letting her grab them. Her fussing ceased. She ate meticulously, one piece of tomato at a time, unconcerned with the rest of the world.

"It depends on the child," Crea said at last. "Some don't walk until well after a year old, but the twins are moving that direction fast. Probably in a couple more months they'll be able to walk on their own."

"Then you shall be an unstoppable force, my dear," Regis told Reina.

Crea laughed. "She's already an unstoppable force, Your Majesty. Her and Noctis both know what they want and get it themselves—and if _that's_ not enough, they have a father who can and will give them everything else."

Regis smiled. "The perks of being royalty."

For now, at least, neither child had any idea what royalty was, let alone that they were it.

"You are going to spoil them, aren't you?" Clarus asked.

"Completely rotten." Regis beamed at the child in his lap and added another tomato to her plate. If he was forced to let someone else raise his children in his stead, the least he could do was bribe them shamelessly until they loved him best of all.

From there, the meal progressed in as much peace as can be expected, with a nine-month-old at the table. They chatted, distracted Reina with soft, bite-sized foods, and teased Crea gently about forks. Not once throughout did Regis find the change of company unfavorable. True, Clarus' chair was usually occupied by Aulea, and as much as Regis would have traded to have her back he couldn't bemoan the addition of his daughter at the lunch table.


	21. In Pursuit of Madness

"I'm afraid I have nothing substantial to report, Your Majesty." Kain Scisco stood once more before the council. To his credit, in spite of being forced to stand in front of the twelve most powerful men and women in the kingdom and admit that no progress had been made, he never wavered.

"The investigation of employees?" Regis asked.

"None seem to have an particular loyalty to Phoenix, Sire, but all they are able to give is word-of-mouth evidence. Though far from ideal, it is _something_. Many of them are prepared to swear that they did receive correspondence from Kurick on the topic of dumping waste, but, of course, these are all people who have reason to hate him, as well. In any case, it seems they were ordered to delete their emails. It seems a sort of purge took place."

"Have none admitted to being involved in the disposal, itself?" Regis steepled his fingers and looked down the long table at Kain. If they could establish one reliable link, perhaps that could be their foot in the door.

"No, Your Majesty," Kain said. "Though I'm not surprised at that. Anyone who _was_ involved isn't going to be forthcoming with that information, after everything that has happened."

"You may offer them immunity in return for information that will help us bring Kurick to justice," said Regis.

"I will try, Your Majesty." Kain bowed.

"It stands to reason that those who were in contact with the waste may have had a harder time of it." Clarus sat forward in his chair, looking between Regis and Kain. "You should concentrate your efforts on those who had the worst exposure symptoms. Requisition medical records if you must."

"Very good, Master Amicitia." Kain took the dismissal and, with one final bow, turned toward the door.

Regis dropped his hands to the arms of his chair. What they needed was one person—at least one person—who had been involved and was willing to trust in the crown for amnesty…

A thought struck him. He sat up straighter in his chair. Someone who had worse exposure than the others. Someone who was just crazy enough to put his freedom on the line for justice. Someone who was disconnected from Phoenix, and maybe—just _maybe—_ hadn't been part of the email purge.

"Hold." Regis spoke and the room stilled. Kain stopped before he could open the door. "Find, first, a man by the name of Spero Perdita, former employee of Phoenix Incorporated. He may well have valuable information."

"I'll track him down at once, Your Majesty."

"When you do so, pray, be gentle. He is not in good health," Regis said.

 _Neither physical nor mental, I suspect_ , he added silently.

Two months had passed since the day Spero had tried and failed to waltz unceremoniously into the king's private study. Regis hadn't heard a word from him since, though he had received confirmation that Phoenix was paying out the appropriate money to recompense him. Given the state that Spero had been in then, Regis found the silence foreboding. True, he had promised to wait for justice for his wife and he had even hinted at a renewed intention to finish his book. On the other hand, he had also implied that he heard the voice of his deceased wife and that he hadn't seen any of his friends for months. Neither of those things sat well with Regis.

For now, there was nothing to do but wait.

* * *

Information from Kain's team usually came in the form of a regularly scheduled, physical meeting every other week, supplemented by written reports that found their way, in some form or another, to Regis' desk nearly every day. So, in spite of his impatience, he was resigned to waiting at least a week to hear news of what had become of Spero. Much was his surprise, therefore, when Kain requested a last-minute meeting only two days later.

As it was impractical to assemble the whole council on such short notice, it was arranged that he should meet with Regis and Clarus privately in the king's study that evening.

"You're worried about him, aren't you?" Clarus stood by the window, blind to the stunning views beyond; instead he looked at Regis.

"Whyever should I be concerned for Mr Scisco?" Regis tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"Not _him_." Clarus sighed. "This man you met in the hospital."

Regis grimaced and looked away. It was as much of an answer as he intended to give, but it was as much of an answer as Clarus would need. He knew the silence was an affirmative.

The truth was, there were a great many things about Spero to be concerned for. Regis knew very little about psychiatry, but it seemed clear that he wasn't of sound, nor stable, mind. There was the way he discussed death with such nonchalance. There was the fact that he kept smiling in that mad way of his that never implied any sort of joy or amusement, but something much darker altogether. And there was the fact that, in spite of his keen observance, he either had no notion of how close to self-harm he bordered… or he didn't care at all.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Enter," Regis said.

It opened to admit Kain, as expected. He came to stand before the king's desk and bowed low.

"Your Majesty."

"What news, Mr Scisco?"

"We were able to track down Mr Perdita, as you requested, Sire, and earlier today I went myself, along with Lieutenant Ackers of the Crownsguard. Unfortunately, we were unable to speak with him. He appears to have barricaded himself in his home and, while he spoke to us briefly through the door, he would not open it and would not grant an interview. As per your instructions, we decided to withdraw rather than press the issue." Kain stood in an almost military pose with his shoulders squared and his hands clasped behind his back. He fixed his eyes on a point over Regis' left shoulder, rather than looking directly at the king.

Regis' brow furrowed. He sat forward in his chair, putting his elbows on his desk. "What, precisely, did he say."

Kain cleared his throat. " 'Go away, you mangy, dimwitted curs, or I'll skin you alive,' Sire."

If it hadn't been so worrisome, it might well have been amusing. As it were, Regis couldn't be certain that Spero _didn't_ believe they were dogs, nor that he wasn't prepared to follow through on the threat.

"The trip was not entirely wasted, from a reconnaissance point of view, Your Majesty," Kain continued. "We were able to talk to some of his neighbors who claim to know him quite well."

"And what did you glean from them?" Regis asked.

"It seems that he has not, to all appearances, left his home at all since returning from the hospital, two months ago. None of them have had much more success contacting him than we did, but some neighbors noted that his lights are often on through the night with signs of motion inside."

Regis strummed his fingers on the desk, this time. "Do they note whether this is unusual behavior?"

"Yes, Sire. Apparently before the death of his wife, Mr Perdita was friendly and outgoing; the pair of them were the heart of the social neighborhood and not a one of their neighbors had ill to speak of him."

Regis sighed. "Very well. Thank you, Mr Scisco. I will see to this matter myself. In the meantime, you will follow up with the current employees."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Kain bowed and saw himself out of the room.

Regis stared at the closed door for a while, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the desktop. "I mean to see him, Clarus."

"Your Majesty, that may be unwise." Clarus took a step away from the window until he was very nearly in the place vacated by Kain. "This man is clearly disturbed. He may well be dangerous."

"No, Clarus," Regis rose from his desk and re-buttoned the bottom button on his suit jacket. "He will not harm me. I believe he is expecting me."

At least, he _hoped_ that was the case. Spero had said he hadn't seen, nor heard from, his friends and yet he had sought out Regis and been—if odd—perfectly amicable. He had also asked for something. Whatever else was wrong with him, Regis couldn't believe that Spero had forgotten about justice for his wife. Not with the way he had looked when he had asked for it.

"You can't possibly know that," Clarus said.

That much was true, so the only response Regis gave was to fix Clarus with his level gaze. "Tell Cor I require his services to reach the outer city. We will depart as soon as he is ready."

Clarus' jaw tightened. He wouldn't object to an order—he was too fiercely loyal for that. The most he would ever do was express his own doubts, and he had already done that.

"I'm coming with you," he said.

"Very well," Regis sighed. "See to it that both of you are ready."

* * *

It had been a long time since Regis had stepped foot in this part of the city. Long enough that he had forgotten what it was like. Too long, by his count.

Inside the Citadel, everything was polished gold and gleaming tile. Too much time inside and he lost track of the real world—the world that was dirty and gritty and harsh. The world that was more than a little bit dangerous for some people. From the Capitol he did his best to change that, but he couldn't save everyone.

The neighborhood where Spero lived was one of the poorest inside the Wall. Most of Lucis was paved in carefully laid brick and interlocking tiles, accented by glass and glistening metal. The stonework was subtle and masterful, but unless one had something to contrast it to, it was very easy to go day by day without ever noticing the details.

Here, everything was different. The streets were unswept, the stone crumbling and in need of repair. The metal was rusted and corroded. Ventilation pipes, an unseemly sight that would never be spotted in upper Insomnia, ran along the edges of buildings. Chain-link fences took the place of glass walls. The streetlamps hissed and buzzed, flickering in the dark. This was the part of Insomnia that no one wanted to admit existed.

But it was not abandoned. Indeed, it was far from it. The apartment buildings pressed up wall-to-wall and stretched five stories up, connected by rickety metal stairs and raised walkways.

Just the sight of a nice car driving past was enough to attract eyes, never mind the fact that it was the king's car, marked by his personal plates and custom design. By the time Cor stopped outside the given address, there was a crowd on the street.

"Are you sure about this, Regis?" Clarus paused with his hand on the door handle, turning in his seat to look at Regis.

"Quite sure."

"I should have brought more men." Cor peered out the driver's side window as the people outside inched closer to the Regalia. "This could go south quickly, Your Majesty."

"Do you expect they intend to mob me?" Regis asked derisively.

Cor fell silent. Clarus opened his door and stepped out before holding the door for Regis. It was a little bit unsettling how quiet the crowd was. There were dozens of them lining the dirty street and standing in doorways. When Regis exited the Regalia, however, a murmur ran through them, then a bow. Some knelt, others bent at the waist while still others simply bowed their heads, uncertain what the precise protocol was for an unexpected encounter with the King of Lucis. He didn't fault them for that, but he did hesitate.

"Your Majesty!" A voice called from the crowd and the silence was broken. All at once everyone was clamoring for his attention. Overhead, windows opened and apartment occupants looked out onto the street.

Cor stepped forward, putting himself between Regis and the vast majority of the crowd. Clarus took a stand at Regis' side.

"Stand back," Cor ordered in a clear, ringing voice. "You do not approach the king without an invitation."

Regis sighed inwardly. He should have been able to walk among them as he pleased—as was necessary—but Cor and Clarus would have made such a horrendous fuss. These people were, on the majority, excited rather than dangerous. They wished to see their king up close. Was that so bad? He understood, as he had done for years, that he was a symbol to them. If that symbol brought some light into dark lives, who was he to deny them a glimpse?

The crowd didn't press inward, whether because they had no intention to in the first place or because they didn't want to invoke the wrath of the Immortal, Regis couldn't be certain. Either way, it didn't stop them from calling out to him.

"Your Majesty—!"

"Will you hold my son, Your Majesty?"

"King Regis—!"

Camera phones flashed. Hands waved. Arms stretched out, as if hoping to brush his arm from five feet away.

Regis stepped out from behind Cor and took the offered child into his arms. He looked to be about two, or not quite. "He is a fine young lad. What is his name?"

"Your Majesty." The disapproval in Cor's voice was clear.

"Acis, Your Majesty." The breathless awe with which the boy's father beheld Regis might once have unnerved him. Now he took it in stride.

"Well, Acis." Regis studied the child severely and Acis returned the favor. "Mind your father; I have no doubt you will grow into a fine young man."

"Your Majesty, Spero Perdita's apartment is in this building." Clarus leaned forward to speak in Regis' ear, indicating the building that stood just behind the crowd, practically at the edge of the street.

 _No rest for the wicked_ , Regis sighed inwardly again and hpassed the boy back to his father while Cor split the crowd for them.

They passed through without incident. Regis walked closely enough to them that he could exchange handshakes and smiles with the people in the crowd. That elongated their short walk up the metal staircase to the main doors, but he didn't mind. This was important, as well.

That wasn't to say that his concern for Spero had vanished. It was still there, hanging in the back of his mind like a shadow fleeing from the light—stretching. He did want to insure that Spero was well, or as well as could be expected. From the sounds of things, that would take some effort.

Inside, the apartment building was no better than the exterior insofar as it was lined with crumbling walls, chipped paint, and a persistent smell of mildew. There were fewer people here, though some doors opened as they passed, the occupants inside crowding around to have a look at him. He treated them all with the same hospitality as the others, though the farther along they walked the less he stopped. They were nearly at Spero's apartment, now, judging by the numbers above the doors.

Spero's door was like any of the others in the hall: stained, a little crooked, with a numeral stamped in peeling paint on the wall above. The main difference was that it was closed. It was not, however, silent. From within, came the wild screech of a violin: not a soothing tune nor a mournful melody, but frantic notes played rapidly, one after the other, until they blended to form a whole.

Cor stopped to one side, turning his back to the wall as if he didn't like to have so many people behind him. Regis stepped up to the door and knocked twice, firmly and without hesitation.

The sound of the violin ceased and the response, after a moment, came clearly from inside: "Go away! I've already told you: I will skin you alive!"

Across the door, Cor and Clarus exchanged a look. It was the sort of look that meant they were conspiring to do something rash if Regis didn't step in.

"Your Majesty?" One door down, a man stepped into the hallway. "Are you here for Spero? He won't come out. I did tell the others."

Regis pursed his lips. As concerned as he was, this was getting ridiculous. He lifted his hand and knocked again. "Spero Perdita, you will do nothing of the sort. Now open this door at once or I will do so, myself."

This time there was no response shouted through the door. The silence stretched. Down the hall, Spero's friend stepped farther into the hallway, watching.

And then the door opened.

Spero stood on the inside, holding a violin by the neck in one hand, along with the bow. Regis' first impression was that he was smaller than he ought to have been. His head looked too large for his neck, his eyes too big for his face. The wrists that showed at the edges of his sleeves were bony and angular. Though the bandages that had once wrapped around his neck and chest appeared to be gone, underneath his skin was rough and pale with broad scars.

"Your Majesty! Should've known you would track me down, eventually—come in, come in." He stepped aside, holding the door and waving his violin. "Don't mind the mess. We've had something of a… rearranging."

The second thing Regis noticed was the madness.

At first it was just a feeling and nothing he could ascribe distinct characteristics to, but as he stepped into the small apartment, his brain put the pieces together for him.

Spero's eyes were rimmed with dark circles, almost sunken in his face and accented by the protruding cheekbones. But it was neither the appearance of too-large eyes nor the dark rings that set Regis' nerves on edge. It was the fact that he wasn't blinking. He just stared, with a manic sort of focus, at Regis—his gaze hardly flicking to Cor and Clarus as they entered as well.

Of course, there was the fact that his home was in shambles, as well. It certainly looked as if he hadn't left in two months. Mostly it was paper. Paper strewn across the floor; piles of it on every horizontal surface: the moth-eaten sofa, the rickety dining table and matching chairs, the desk in the back corner; paper balled up and discarded forming a heap in the corner. The only place that didn't have paper was the single chair by the desk, atop which sat an old typewriter. No computer, no television, in fact, so far as Regis could see the only electronics were the lights and whatever kitchen appliances had come built-in.

If that wasn't enough, there was the way he had referred to himself in the plural form. Previously he had admitted to speaking to his deceased wife and, evidently, hearing a response. Did he believe she was there with him?

Out in the hallway, Spero's neighbor had come to poke his head around the corner of the open door.

"Spero—"

"Yes, thank you, doing fine. Goodbye." Spero slammed the door in his face. He turned and crossed to the sofa, dropping his violin unceremoniously among the papers there and tugging at his sleeves. "So. Have you come for a story? It's not finished yet."

"No, Spero. That is not why I have come—though I am pleased you have picked up your work again." Perhaps pleased was too strong of a word. Regis would have been pleased to have found Spero struggling—but at least _trying_ —to reclaim his life. Instead he found chaos.

Spero waved a dismissive hand.

"Yes, yes. The book will be finished. Never published, in all likelihood. Finished, though. Finished."

"Spero—" Regis took a step forward.

"You owe me something as well, I think, hm?" Spero picked up a stack of papers from the couch, flipped through it, and dumped them all on the floor at his feet, then dropped onto the couch beside his violin.

"That is why we have come." Regis took a step forward.

"Have you got him, then?" Spero turned sideways on the couch to face them, resting one arm along the back of it and tucking one foot up.

"Not yet. I need your help. Tell me: were you involved in the dumping? The exposure you suffered—"

"Well of course I was." Spero rose to his feet again, not, Regis suspected, through any sort of agitation. It was almost as if he had forgotten that he had only just sat down.

Regis glanced at Clarus. Here was someone who had been involved and was willing to say at much. It might further their cause.

Clarus, however, gave the tiniest shake of his head. For a moment Regis wasn't certain why.

"It wasn't far from here, you know. That's what did it. Doesn't help that I came home covered in the stuff. Killed her, myself." Spero dragged his fingers over his forearm, scratching at it through his shirt without looking.

"That was no fault of yours," Regis said automatically.

"No… no." Spero's eyes flicked toward the closed door in the back of the room. The bedroom? "Do you plan to arrest me, then?" He looked back at Regis, his eyes wide and wild as he flashed teeth in a smile.

That was what the look Clarus had given him was for. Perhaps they did have a witness—an active participant willing to give full disclosure—but it was clear he wasn't of sound mind. Who would believe him, besides Regis?

"No, Spero. But I do need to know if you have access to anything that could tie Kurick to this." Regis chose his tone carefully. He had no idea what to expect, but it felt like one wrong move could have sent Spero fleeing… or leaping.

"Oh, might have. Might have." Spero tugged at his curls and his fingers came away with a clump of hair. "Have to look, you know. Did you talk to her?"

He changed the subject without even a breath in between. Regis blinked, taking a moment to catch up.

"You did. I see you did." Spero flashed teeth again. It was hardly a smile, but on another face it might have been. "She didn't smile before but now she does. How was it, then?"

Regis opened his mouth, then shut it without a word. Had Spero just said Aulea was smiling?

"It was… helpful." That wasn't entirely true, but anything less seemed liable to set him off.

"Mm. It hurts, doesn't it?" Spero asked. The look on his face almost suggested that was a good thing.

"Yes," Regis admitted. The whole truth, this time—though maybe he didn't mean it the same way Spero did.

"Well, well… yes… yes it does." Spero tugged at his sleeves. "I'll find that connection for you. Emails. Hm. Yes, there were. I'll drop them by when I do. Maybe your guards won't try to throw me out, this time."

"I will insure that they do not," Regis said.

"Good!" Spero stuck his hand out to shake. The sleeve of his shirt, too big on his shrunken frame, fell away to display angry red lines down his forearm, both new and old. Some had formed fresh pink scars that mingled with the the others that scattered his skin; others were so new that there was red blood on the sleeve of his white shirt.

Regis took the offered hand and pushed Spero's cuff up to his elbow. They ran nearly all the way up, criss-crossing and overlapping.

"You did this to yourself?" Regis looked up at him.

"Mm. It looks quite nice, don't you think?" Spero looked down at his arm, a mad little smile tugging at his lips. "Though sometimes I think I should mix things up. A great line straight down the middle." He traced the index finger on his off hand along the veins that ran parallel to his arm. "But then you'd never get to see the end of the story, would you?"

"Clarus." Regis kept his voice level and his eyes fixed on Spero. He didn't let go of Spero's hand. "I want you to call a doctor."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Spero, I will give you two choices. Either you check yourself into a hospital or you come back with us," Regis said.

"To the Citadel?" Spero gave a bark of laughter. "Can't look if I'm not here, can I? If it's here, it's here: not there."

Regis pursed his lips. "There are people at the Citadel who can help you. People you can talk to."

"I have people. Person," Spero said.

"People besides Elaisse," Regis said. "We would make certain you had sufficient food and a place to work if you wish to write."

"No, no." Spero waved his free hand again, as if swatting away invisible flies. He still made no attempt to pull away from Regis. "No food. Just ash."

Ash. That was what Regis' had likened the taste of food to, when his appetite deserted him, but he had understood it _was_ food and that he did need to eat. Did Spero?

"Spero… when was the last time you ate?"

Spero shook his head and scratched at his exposed arm. "Who knows?"

Regis' jaw tightened. He had the resources to see to it that Spero received the necessary treatment at the Citadel, but the hospital was not without its own benefits.

"The hospital or the Citadel, Spero. Those are your options. I will not leave you here unattended."

Spero sighed, but he flashed his teeth again, nonetheless. "Take me to the nuthouse, then. So be it. Always should have been locked up."

It was better than Regis had hoped for. He had expected, at least in some form, resistance. Yet Spero was docile and uncomplaining. There was no hint that he might try to make a sudden dash for the window or door. Then again, Regis wouldn't have put it past him to do something completely unexpected. As such, he kept one hand on Spero's arm as they moved toward the door. His other hand settled on Spero's back. Beneath his palm there were only bones and fabric.

"I can't write without my writer, you know." Spero paused in the doorway.

Regis glanced toward the desk with teetering piles of paper surrounding the typewriter. "I am certain it can be arranged for things to be brought to you. Is there anything you need immediately?"

"My violin. So that I might keep the other psychos awake with my inane screeching."

Questionable motivation, but it seemed, at least, to be a personal desire—which was more than might have been said for anything else in his life.

"Cor." Regis motioned to the sofa, where the violin lay, and Cor picked it up. To Spero, Regis added, "I had no idea you played."

"I did, once." Spero allowed himself to be guided out into the hallway without objection.

"I should like to hear you do so again," Regis said.

"Perhaps you will." Spero turned to give him an unblinking smile. "Perhaps you won't."

Something about the way he said it implied that the lack thereof would not be from happenstance.


	22. Mistakes

It was still dark when he went out, sneaking from his own castle like a thief in the pre-dawn mist. The whole world was quiet at that hour, just before the sun touched the underside of the horizon but after the sky turned pale and golden. That used to be her favorite time. She always said it was the moment when the whole world was still asleep so it gave them some space to breathe, and after that they could watch the sunrise together, still laying in bed. It just wasn't possible to be grumpy at a sunrise, Aulea had said.

Regis wasn't sure he believed that, anymore. At the time she made it hard not to. Now he looked at the paling sky above the mausoleum and, while he didn't feel sullen, he certainly didn't feel anything good, either. Aulea had found that hour peaceful. Just now, it seemed like it would be easy to feel completely and utterly alone in a world so still.

He did.

Regis shut his eyes and took the last few steps up to the mausoleum doors and let himself inside. The last of the Chionodoxa had faded, so he brought with him a handful of white roses from the gardens, instead. The gardeners would have had anyone else's head for picking their flowers but, he reasoned, they were really _his_ flowers more than anyone else's. Besides, Aulea would have thought it funny.

In addition to the flowers, the only company he brought with him was a full bottle of scotch.

He replaced the wilting flowers in Aulea's vase and put his back to the wall.

"Happy—" The words caught in his throat. His vision blurred and his nose burned.

 _Shit_.

He cracked the seal on the bottle, unscrewed the top, and cast it into the depths of the mausoleum. Caps were for people who didn't intend to finish the whole bottle in one sitting. The scotch burned the back of his throat, but it didn't make his eyes water any worse through the tears. He winced and dropped his head back against the wall with a groan.

"Happy anniversary, my love."

It was either going to be a very long day or a very short one. He was hoping for the later.

* * *

Eight months since Aulea's death. Regis had experienced his ups and downs but at long last he was coming through. Clarus had watched him struggle against his grief, struggle not to succumb to it in every form manifested. First it had paralyzed him and the harder he worked the tighter it bound him. Then he had tried burying it beneath his work, working himself exhausted until there was nothing left to keep running. That, Clarus believed, had been something of a wake-up call. Afterwards, Regis had been somewhat more conservative, more careful. Something about that experience had changed his mind yet again and driven him to, at long last, visit Aulea and open up.

For all that he had insisted it caused nothing but pain, Clarus could see the effects from the outside. After that first talk with Aulea, everything else had fallen into place. He still _hurt_ —any fool could see that—but he had stopped blocking it all inside and pretending it wasn't there.

That night they had stayed up all night sharing stories of Aulea. It was bittersweet pain, but the four of them had bourn it together and there was nothing better for grief than companionship. Together, they had gotten through. The next day had been hell, of course, but that was a different matter altogether.

After that, Regis had started eating again. He had taken up his old place in the dining hall and now frequented places he used to avoid altogether—the change had happened swiftly and without comment, though sometimes Clarus still spotted that faraway look on Regis' eye. That was expected.

So Regis had his duty and his crown, but he had finally accepted that his friends stood beside him as well. In addition, Clarus noted one more thing that pushed Regis forward: that man he had met at the hospital, Spero Perdita. He was insane—that much was clear in Clarus' mind from the one time they had met—but Regis was attached to him. Clarus wondered if it wasn't because he saw something of himself in Spero. After all, Spero had lost his wife, as well. Perhaps Regis believed that he could save himself by saving Spero.

If that was what he wanted, then that was what he would have: a month ago, they had checked Spero into the mental hospital and preliminary reports seemed positive. According to his doctors, he was gaining weight, responding well to antipsychotics, and had given no further indication of self-harm or suicidal inclinations. Regis always seemed pleased to have their reports, but he hadn't yet found the time to visit.

Time was a scarcity, after all.

Such was the state of affairs when Clarus arrived at the Citadel that morning in July. Given Regis' recent good health and apparent good spirits, he expected to find nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly, he didn't expect to find the king's study empty save for Weskham and Cor having an argument in hushed voices.

"It is _not_ my responsibility. I am his head of household and staff, not his nursemaid." Weskham folded his arms over his chest and leveled a glare at Cor.

"It doesn't matter whose _fault_ it is!" Cor hissed. "I've already reassigned every possible crownsguard. I need your staff."

"What shall I tell them? Announce to Insomnia that the king is missing? You know how servants talk."

 _Missing?_ Surely he had heard incorrectly.

"What's going on here?" Clarus shut the door behind him.

Weskham rounded on him. "Regis was not in his room, this morning."

"The guards outside his door report him leaving at about five. That's the last visual we have on him," Cor said.

He hadn't misheard. Regis was _actually_ missing.

"Gods all—" Clarus swore and put his back against the door. The room seemed a lot less stable, suddenly. All the lines wavered and swayed, and he had to hold onto the door handle to keep from doing the same.

 _Be rational_ , he scolded himself. _Regis is competent. It's highly unlikely that anything happened—if it did happen—without a fight. There will be some sort of indication. Some clue._

He forced himself straighter. "The crownsguard are searching the Citadel for any signs of him?" He asked Cor.

"Yes. With no results."

"Widen your search to the grounds. Everything inside the Citadel gates gets picked to pieces," Clarus said.

Cor tapped his earpiece and gave the order with neither hesitation nor question. For all they bickered, it was something Clarus could admire about him. Cor had never been one to stand around exchanging words when there was work to be done. Fewer words in exchange for action: that was his way.

"Weskham—tell the household," Clarus said.

"But the panic—His Majesty's reputation—"

"Will mean _nothing_ if he loses his life," Clarus said. "All of your people have an understanding of secrecy, else they wouldn't be here. Impress upon them the need for discretion. Nothing leaves the gates. This is a matter of national security."

"Very well." Weskham gave in, taking leave of them to gather up the household.

Clarus stepped farther into the room, pacing idly. He trailed his fingers over the smooth wood of Regis' desk and tried not to think about the possibility that it would never be occupied again.

"Well we know he isn't dead." Cor looked out the window, eyes on the sky or rather, more accurately, the shimmering dome that covered the city.

The Wall still stood. Regis' own life powered it; without that, the magic would fail. Without the Wall, Insomnia would fall. Without Insomnia, Lucis would fall.

Clarus shook his head.

 _How could we let this happen?_ He pressed his palms flat against the desk. All the papers here were neat and orderly—Weskham's hand, no doubt. Nothing was out of place, no hints given as to the king's whereabouts. Not that Clarus expected there necessarily would be, but…

"Do you think he's been taken?" Clarus asked.

"What else?"

Clarus shook his head, straightening. Eight months ago he might have been more afraid for Regis' life at his own hands, but so much had changed since then. He had been doing _fine_. Once he had been so deep in despair that he might have forgotten his responsibilities and succumbed to the grief, but not now. Besides, they had seen what that looked like.

That, Clarus guessed, more than anything was what Regis found sobering about Spero. Clarus couldn't say for certain whether or not Regis had ever seriously considered the easy way out—he liked to think the answer was no—but it was difficult to look at a man who was so clearly ready to end his life and still consider it. That was what Spero had done for Regis. Spero had made him think, made him realize what it would be like to experience that from the other side. The side that got left behind.

And Regis wasn't the sort of man who would do that to his friends.

Unless…

What if something had happened? Something that had reminded him so strongly of Aulea that it had driven all other thoughts from his mind until he was mad with grief.

 _July_.

"What is the date?"

"The tenth of July." Cor answered readily enough, but his tone implied a question that he didn't ask.

 _July tenth! How could I have been so stupid? How could I forget?_ Clarus shut his eyes and cursed himself.

"I know where he is," Clarus said, turning to the door. "Come."

Cor didn't ask questions, though he must have had them. Perhaps he had come to the same conclusion himself, once the date was brought up. Perhaps not. Either way, they were going to Aulea's grave and everything told Clarus they would find Regis there. It was just a matter of what state they would find him in.

"Weskham—" They passed Weskham in the hall and Clarus beckoned to him. For all that Weskham's concerns paled in comparison to Regis' absence, they weren't completely unfounded. If avoidable, it was preferable not to announce all the details to the staff, especially if what Clarus surmised had happened.

Confusion flashed on Weskham's face, but he fell into step on Clarus' other side with a brief word to the attendant he had been speaking to.

"They've found him?" Weskham asked, keeping his voice low as they walked.

"No, but I believe we will," Clarus said.

No one asked any other questions. They passed out of the Citadel and crossed down the green slopes of the grounds, past the fountain, cutting through the gardens to reach the mausoleum. The door was open.

Clarus led the way inside. His mind conjured up images, unbidden, before they even reached Aulea's grave. What exactly would they find? Regis, lost and broken, crumpled beside Aulea's grave with everything they had all worked for in the past eight months completely undone? Worse, still, was the possibility that he wasn't there at all.

Clarus wasn't sure if that was worse than what they actually found.

Regis was there, precisely where Clarus had expected to find him. He lay on the floor, his eyes shut, his suit wrinkled and askew. Beside him lay a bottle of scotch: empty.

"Regis?" Clarus stepped forward, avoiding the puddle of sick on the floor.

Regis didn't respond. Clarus dropped to his knees on the stone beside him. He picked up the bottle and glanced over it, picking out the alcohol content. Sixty-three percent.

"Shit," Clarus breathed.

He pressed two fingers to the king's neck, feeling for a pulse. How long had he been out there? How long had it taken him to go through that whole damn bottle?

Not quite long enough to kill himself, at least. There was a pulse, thready and inconsistent, but there all the same. Clarus exhaled heavily. If he really had drank that whole bottle in one morning it spelled death. Clarus' one consolation was that clearly not all of it had stayed in Regis' system. If they worked fast enough, they might just save him.

"Call a doctor," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Cor.

Cor didn't ask questions, didn't hesitate: he just did things.

"Regis? Can you hear me?" He grasped his friend's shoulder, shaking firmly, but Regis gave no response save a lifeless loll of his head. "I swear to the Gods, if you live I am never letting you out of my sight again."

In the doorway, Cor gave instructions over the radio. Weskham stepped around him and knelt on Regis' other side. Together, they managed to haul him into an upright position. Between the three of them they would be able to get him out of the mausoleum. It might not be pretty or convenient or anything of the sort, but it was better than leaving him there any longer.

Clarus hooked his hands under Regis' arm while Weksham did the same on the other side. They exchanged a nod and heaved at the same time, pulling the comatose king to his feet. It took some maneuvering to drag him to the door where Clarus was standing, but once they did it was unanimously agreed that they needed to readjust their hold on Regis.

They must have made quite a spectacle: the King's Shield, his steward, and Cor the Immortal dragging a passed out king through the gardens, up to the Citadel, and into the elevator. It was a small blessing that there were only servants and crownsguards around at that time of day—they attracted enough attention from those.

Somehow they made it to Regis' temporary quarters. Each step was punctuated by a painful pounding in Clarus' chest. He had to stop himself from dwelling on 'what if's all the way there.

What if they hadn't reached him soon enough?

They deposited Regis on the bed and found a trash can with a liner for him—the state of the linens wasn't really the first concern on Clarus' mind, but there was little else to do besides fret while they waited for the doctor to arrive.

What if they couldn't help him?

It seemed to take much longer than it actually did. There was more than one doctor on hand at the Citadel—one of the benefits of having a full household of royal staff and then some—so there wasn't even city commute time to factor in. All the same it was too long, by Clarus' watch.

What if Regis actually wanted to die?

The doctor that did arrive was prompt and no-nonsense. After some cursory questions, which Clarus answered to the best of his knowledge, she gave the king an emetic. From there it was a long and messy wait. They waited, anyway. What else could they do?

Weskham took up a position in one of the armchairs. Cor leaned against the wall near the foot of the bed. Clarus paced. He couldn't seem to help himself.

 _Please, Regis. Please just pull through this_.

He ran his fingers through his hair. In his youth he had worn it long, but it had been cropped short for years, now. He had started losing it before thirty; he always told Regis it was his fault. Now, as he tugged at what remained of it, pausing in his tracks to look at Regis, he swore he would have given all of it if only Regis would open his eyes again.

Clarus wanted to believe it had been a mistake. Just a stupid accident. Regis hadn't _meant_ to drown himself in scotch, he had just gotten carried away trying to lessen the pain. It wasn't much better than the alternative, but…

He ran his hands over his face and resumed his pacing.

How could he still hurt so much? How could he have that hidden away inside him after all they had been through? And why was Clarus so _Gods damned useless_?

Eventually, Cor left to determine how the king had left the castle without anyone notifying him. Another doctor arrived, accompanied by a handful of aids and a bag of equipment that Clarus couldn't have named if he wanted to. They held a rapid conference and spent the next thirty minutes poking and prodding the still-unconscious king. By the time they were through and the trash was taken out, Regis was laid up properly in the bed with an IV in his arm, looking pale and ragged but evidently alive.

"His Majesty is through the worst of it, Master Amicitia." It was the first doctor who approached to give report. "He should sleep off the rest and be awake by this afternoon, but I'll remain on hand, just in case."

Clarus drew what seemed like his first breath in an hour. He felt as if he had been the one getting wrung out and hung up to dry. He thanked her and the others withdrew.

"I should… see to the household." Weskham rose reluctantly to his feet.

Clarus nodded idly. He wasn't pacing anymore, but he was still looking at Regis. He looked broken. Worse, even, than when he had been confined to bed for weeks with that fever. He was battling enemies that Clarus couldn't protect him from. If only he could.

Weskham withdrew. Clarus found himself drawn forward, compelled to sit on the edge of Regis' bed. His skin looked white against the black of the linens; he was paler that he should have been. Clarus took his hand and held onto it.

"Why did you do it, Regis?" He didn't expect an answer, but he still wanted to say the words. "I know the world is a cold place without her, but… I hope it's not empty…"

Like it would have been empty without Regis.


	23. Left Unspoken

It was too much to hope for being left alone. With Regis' unexpected absence, the Citadel was teetering on the brink of chaos; during the first hour alone, no fewer than five different servants had come bearing messages from council members for Clarus. He should have expected that much, but in truth his mind was preoccupied with other things. The state of the kingdom seemed less important while he was wondering if the king would live to see it at all.

Now, though, Regis was stable. Still asleep, but the doctors had assured Clarus more than one time that he wouldn't remain that way. Now Clarus couldn't afford to ignore the kingdom any longer.

"Master Amicitia?" The servant by the door ventured a reminder after his prolonged silence.

"Yes, I know." In spite of his words, Clarus remained seated on the edge of Regis' bed. He didn't want Regis to wake while he was away, but he could no longer put off leaving.

The door opened again, but Clarus didn't look to see who had entered.

Regis had always looked a king; the way he held himself, the way he dressed, the way he never had a single hair out of place all added to it. Even when they were children it had been impossible to forget that he was the prince and would one day take his father's throne. Looking at him now, though, Clarus didn't see a king. He didn't even see a young prince making a name for himself. He saw a man, bent and broken under the weight of his wife's death.

"I'll stay with him, Clarus."

Weskham's voice pulled Clarus from his reverie. He looked toward the door for the first time and found that Weskham had arrived and dismissed the servant who had been waiting for Clarus' response.

Clarus gave him a grimace, which was meant to be a grateful smile. It wasn't as good as not leaving at all, but leaving him in Weskham's hands was preferable to leaving him alone or with any others.

"Very well." Clarus sighed and stood. His muscles protested the sudden motion. How long had he been sitting there? He released Regis' hand and stretched cautiously, wincing.

 _Getting old already_ , he thought. Once upon a time they could have spent all day cutting down imperials, slept for three hours with rocks for pillows, and done the same thing the next day. Now it was all starting to add up.

"You'll send word if he wakes?"

"Of course," Weskham said.

With no further excuses to keep him from his work, Clarus withdrew to face the council and see to the kingdom in the king's absence.

One thing followed another for what little remained of the morning and a sizable portion of the afternoon. It was late enough to be called evening by the time word was sent to say the king had finally woken. What remained on Clarus' schedule at that point was postponed; he took immediately to Regis' side.

Clarus found him propped among a heap of pillows with the IV still in his arm. Weskham sat in one of the armchairs, which he had moved to a spot beside the bed. He looked up when Clarus entered, but Regis didn't. Clarus had spent all day holding together the kingdom that Regis had carelessly abandoned and all morning before that worrying himself to shreds, and Regis couldn't even grace him with a single look. No thanks. No apology. No explanation for what he had done—for what he had very nearly done—just silence and a blank stare at the wall across from his bed.

"You. _Fucking_. Idiot."

Regis' eyes flicked toward him, but he didn't say anything. He didn't even have the good grace to look guilty.

Behind Clarus, the door opened once more. Cor entered and put his back to the door, standing with his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. Weskham looked momentarily surprised at Clarus' outburst—perhaps Weskham would try to stop him, but he knew that Cor would not.

"Of all the Gods damned stupid things to do—tell me, did you actually intend to kill yourself?" Clarus continued, heedless of the look Weskham was giving him.

There was a pause while Regis, apparently, collected his thoughts. His eyes were still fixed blankly at the wall directly opposite from him, though he didn't appear to be looking at anything.

"No," he said at last.

"Small blessings," Clarus drawled, folding his arms over his chest. "Instead of a suicidal king, I serve an irresponsible imbecile."

Regis simply nodded, his mouth drawn in a tight line. It wasn't very satisfying to chastise him, but at least calling him a fucking idiot had made Clarus feel a little better. At length Clarus sighed and dropped his arms; his anger was getting them nowhere and wasn't likely to. He took a step forward, then another, until he had crossed the distance between them and taken a seat on the edge of the bed.

"What were you thinking?" He made it a question rather than an accusation. He had no idea how to fix a broken heart, but perhaps if he knew what was going on inside Regis' head…

"You know what I was thinking." Regis' voice was slow and hoarse, but still bitter.

"Aulea wouldn't have wanted this for you."

Regis swallowed with effort, like his mouth was too dry for what should have been a reflexive motion. He was still staring fixedly at the wall, refusing to look at Clarus.

"I know," was all he said.

"If you keep at this, you will wear yourself into the ground. The drinking, the sleepless nights—you've gotten better with eating and not working yourself quite as hard, but you have to start taking care of yourself again, Regis." Clarus sat with his forearms braced on his knees and his hands folded. He didn't turn to look at Regis; it made it feel a little more mutual.

"Must I?" Regis asked, his tone dry.

"Yes. If not for your sake then for your childrens'. What happens to Noctis and Reina if you fall apart?"

"Perhaps they would be better off without this sort of father."

Clarus bit back a sound of frustration. Was this the game they were going to play, now? A wallowing in self-pity? He stood abruptly.

"You're right. They would be much better off with a father who cared whether or not they grew up with one parent or none, who strove to be better for them, who worked for love of his kin rather than hate of himself, and who had the self-respect to do something about it when he found he wasn't that man."

He turned on his heel, glancing only briefly at Regis. It was long enough to see that surprised expression on Regis' face when he finally looked up.

"Clarus—" It was Weskham, though, who called out when Clarus moved for the door. Clarus looked back to see him rising from his chair. "You know that's unfair."

So often in the past eight months he and Weskham had been united in purpose. It was bizarre to find himself at odds with an ally, but he didn't regret his words. If anything, Weskhams attempt to change his mind only stoked the flames.

"No. What's unfair is dedicating our lives to a man who is so willing to throw everything away over the death of his wife. What's unfair is two children, through no fault of their own, growing up neglected and unloved because their father can't _get over himself_. Whatever you say, I serve the king. You let me know when he wakes up; I'll be holding his kingdom together." Clarus turned toward the door again. This time no one stopped him.

Cor opened it and followed him out; perhaps he felt that everything that needed saying had been said, or perhaps he wanted to make a silent statement that he agreed with Clarus. Either way, Clarus wasn't certain he approved of the company.

He moved down the hall; there were some loose ends to tie up with the council before he could leave, but he had never wanted to leave early so much before. He was halfway there before he realized Cor was still walking with him.

When he glanced at Cor, Cor gave him a tiny nod. "It had to be said. He's had long enough. It's time he gets his head back where it belongs."

Somehow, the fact that Cor praised his actions did more for changing his mind than Weskham's scolding. Clarus pursed his lips and shook his head. "Someone had to say it," he agreed at length. "But that doesn't mean I enjoyed being the one to do it."

* * *

It took longer than Clarus expected to tie up all the 'loose ends'—by the time he was finally through, he found the phrase entirely insufficient for describing the mess of unwoven threads that was the state of the Citadel—and when he finally did he was feeling not only exhausted but more than a little bit contrite.

Regis, on what should have been the fourth anniversary of his wedding, had fallen back into the depression that had haunted him for months. Instead of reaching out, he closed himself inside and drowned his pain in scotch. It was frustrating. After convincing himself that Regis was through the worst of it, that he was finally opening up and letting the others help him, Clarus found that it was all just another lie.

But that was a poor excuse for how he had reacted.

Was it really Regis' fault? Was it really so unreasonable that he should mourn his wife most of all on the day that should have been a happy one for them? Cor would have them believe that it was, but after a day doing Regis' job for him, Clarus wasn't so sure.

So it was that he found his feet taking him back toward Regis' rooms, rather than to the front of the Citadel to leave this whole mess behind him for the night. Outside stood the usual crownsguards, but between them the door was ajar. Expecting to find Weskham inside, Clarus stepped forward and pushed it open just enough to see.

Instead of Weskham, though, Clarus found the woman from the nursery keeping Regis company. More than that, however: Regis held Noctis in his arms, enveloping him as if he meant never to let go. Regis' eyes were shut, but the look on his face was clear, even from across the room. Perhaps he had claimed that his children would be better off without him. Perhaps a part of him even believed it was true. But the real truth of the matter was that he could never have let them go for any reason.

Clarus only hoped it was enough. If Regis had that to hold onto, maybe—just maybe—it would be enough to drag him back for good.

Satisfied that Regis was in good company, Clarus turned and left before he was spotted. His apologies could wait until the morning.


	24. Winding Down

In the Citadel, gossip spilled like scotch from a cracked cup: straight from the source and spreading without resistance, invariably making a stained mess of everything it touched. And it reeked. No one actually liked the smell of scotch. Arguably few even liked the taste.

As such, by the evening meal in the servants' mess, the story of the king passing out from drink at the foot of his wife's grave was everywhere. Those who hadn't heard it yet were regaled with the tale thrice-over during the meal. There were few things better than gossip and gossip about the monarch was the best kind.

"Master Amicitia, Master Armaugh, and The Marshal took him upstairs this morning. He hasn't come out, since."

Crea blinked, her fork halfway to her mouth and completely forgotten. "Is he alright?"

"Who knows. No one has seen him."

"That's not true! I spoke to Etgar who said that Abel was one of the ones attending His Majesty this afternoon. Apparently _he_ said that the doctors said the king was fine, but that he doesn't look it. Said Master Amicitia came in and shouted at him, earlier—sent everyone except the king's closest away, first, and then gave him a right proper reaming. They could hear it in the hall."

Crea put her fork down and rested her chin in her hand, drumming fingers against her own cheek.

"Did he do it on purpose?" She asked, picking up her fork once more and prodding at her pie, noncommittal.

"Pass out in the mausoleum? I daresay—"

"Not _that_ ," Crea interrupted. Gyles would never shut up, otherwise. "He nearly killed himself, didn't he? If they had to bring so many doctors in? Was he trying to?"

The others at her table exchanged looks, as if that possibility hadn't occurred to them. _Really._ Didn't anyone ever think past the surface, here?

"I hadn't thought of that," Gyles admitted. "But you don't think the _king_ —"

"He hasn't been right since the queen died. I know I'm not the only one who has found him sleeping at his desk with a bottle in the mornings," said a wispy old woman who Crea knew only as part of the cleaning staff.

Crea took a bite of her dinner, finally, and considered. By his own admission she knew His Majesty hadn't been sleeping in his own quarters. Sometimes he fell asleep in the nursery and she was always careful to let him sleep. But she hadn't heard about the bottle, before. It seemed the binge in the mausoleum wasn't the first time he had reached for alcohol to dull the pain, but he had certainly never come to see his children while under the influence, before. _That_ was something.

"What happens if the king dies…?" asked one of the younger attendants—a boy that Crea had only seen around for the past month.

"I suppose that rule falls to Master Amicitia," Gyles said, stirring his soup with his fork before trying to take a bite and finding nothing there. He paused, momentarily distracted by the mystery of how his spoon had sprouted tines, before putting his thoughts in order once more. "The real problem isn't who rules, but what happens to the Crown City without a king on the throne. You know they say that if the king falls, the Wall falls—and that only a member of the royal family can hold it. If he kicks it now—with the prince and princess not even a year old? We'll all be toast as soon as the empire comes knocking again."

And with that uncomfortable thought, the conversation ceased. It picked up again later, turning to other topics, but Crea paid them little heed. She was still thinking about the king.

When dinner was through she tracked down Abel and found out what room His Majesty was in. Abel was only too happy to give her more information than she needed; it took her fifteen minutes to excuse herself from more speculation on King Regis' state of mind, and by that time she was late for her shift. The fact that she took a brief detour to find the room didn't help her punctuality. It wasn't difficult to find: there were crownsguards standing outside the door and a pair of attendants idling in the hall.

With her mind made up and something resembling a plan, Crea arrived in the nursery.

Joyce, the nurse she had been meant to relieve twenty minutes ago, looked irked at her tardiness but seemed unwilling to scold her own boss. It wasn't difficult to convince her to take both twins down the hall to the room with the crownsguards outside.

"What's this?" Asked one of the guards at the door.

"The prince and princess to see His Majesty," Crea supplied, trying to sound like she wasn't making everything up on the fly.

She held her breath. The crownsguards exchanged glances and one of them shrugged.

"Master Armaugh only said not to let His Majesty leave; nothing about not letting the prince and princess in," he said.

They let her in.

Crea breathed again, hardly daring to believe her luck. Any elation she felt at her own cleverness, however, was washed away by the sight inside the room.

King Regis looked as if he had been chewed up and spat out. He lay sprawled among his pillows with his eyes open, but not quite focused as he stared up at the ceiling. By all accounts he was a handsome man, but it was certainly diminished by his current haggard look: his skin was a shade paler than it should have been, his eyes were hollow and his cheeks sunken, his hair was disheveled, his beard needed a trim, and he wore the previous day's clothes. To look at him, one would hardly believe he was only twenty-nine. Part of that, Crea supposed, was from the cost of upholding the Wall. People said it drained his strength. Few Lucian monarchs lived to see old age; Crea had only been thirteen when King Mors had died, but he hadn't even been sixty.

At the sound of the door, he stirred, turning his head to look at the short procession of nurses. When he did, the blank look vanished from his face, replaced instead with something like hope. He pushed himself up into an upright position, his eyes fixed on Noctis.

Crea nudged Joyce forward when she hesitated. Thankfully, she took the hint and brought the sleepless child to his father. The king wrapped Noct into a hug, shutting his eyes and exhaling like he had never expected to hold his son again. That was one question answered, at least. He hadn't wanted to die—or if he had, he certainly didn't anymore. No one who looked like that could have given up all desire to live.

* * *

It never seemed to end.

Regis remembered sitting in the mausoleum, drowning out the ache in his heart with more scotch than was sensible as he told Aulea everything he could think of about their twins. After that, everything was patchy. He remembered waking up in a bed in the Citadel with half a dozen people hovering over him. He had felt like shit then and he did, now. Nothing much had changed.

Clarus had shouted at him, called him an idiot, agreed that his children were better off without him, and then left him with Weskham. Regis stumbled along, fixating on those words while the endless day dragged on. His head hurt. His stomach rolled. His mouth felt like he had swallowed a whole beach. But all of that was dwarfed by the pain and the guilt.

He _should_ have been better. Didn't he love them enough to do better for them? To carry on? He wanted to. He wanted to be there for both of them when they grew up and all the while along. But to do it without Aulea… it just hurt _so much_.

And then they had come.

Somehow, without his asking, without him even knowing, Crea had brought precisely what he needed. He had no idea how she had talked her way past his jailers and he didn't even care. All that mattered was that she had gotten Noctis and Reina through to him. They were the only things that still meant anything in the world. Two bright spots in an endless darkness.

He held Noctis against his shoulder like some precious thing; he kissed the side of his son's head, heedless of the baby's fussing objection. Distantly, he registered motion at the door and the second nurse who had come in leaving, but the only thing he looked at was Noct.

"Noctis, little prince… you are growing so quickly." He was still undecided as to whether that was a bad thing or not. On the one hand, he wanted them to remain small forever, but on the other he wanted to see everything they would become in the years ahead. Already Noct could stand up in his lap with only Regis' hands for balance. He could crawl, pull himself upright, and take steps with support. Reina, meanwhile, had even been spotted standing—albeit briefly— _without_ support. How long before they learned to walk on their own?

The bed shifted as someone else sat down. Regis looked up to see Crea there, holding Reina in her arms. The princess was fast asleep; only a tiny tuft of black hair over her sweet little face was visible among the blankets. Would that she always looked so peaceful. If it was in his power, he would make certain of it.

How could he think of letting them go? How could he ever wish for them to be alone? If he was gone he couldn't protect them, couldn't give anything and everything for their happiness. _That_ was what he wanted.

His eyes settled on Crea. She was looking placid, not smug nor expectant nor even disapproving. There was even the hint of a smile turning the corners of her mouth, but there was a certain melancholy in the arch of her brows.

"Thank you," he said with feeling.

Her job was to watch the twins. It had very little to do with him and she had no reason to go out of her way to bring them to him. Yet, in spite of that, she had. She must have had to talk her way past several different people in order to get that far, people who commanded a certain amount of respect and—often—fear from the youth and the Citadel servants, of which she was both. How had she even known…?

"You don't need to thank me, Your Majesty," Crea said.

"Nevertheless, I do. And I quite mean it: thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

She smiled properly, then. "You're welcome… I thought it might help."

Noctis, still held out in front of Regis, took unsteady and unmoving steps. Regis turned him to face out, his gaze moving between the boy and the nurse.

"You have heard all, then, I gather…" he noted with some regret. It was just the sort of story he needed to have spread through the Citadel: that time the king got so drunk he nearly killed himself.

"Everyone has," she admitted.

Regis grimaced. "Of course."

"It's not so bad," Crea said, encouragingly.

Noctis babbled wordlessly. Crea made faces at him, drawing a musical laugh. That laughter was, without contest, Regis' favorite sound in the world.

In spite of everything, Regis smiled. Crea smoothed a hand over Noctis' hair, which had begun to grow in more fully in thick blue-black locks. When her eyes lifted to meet Regis' once more, she smiled as well.

"They'll all forget about it in a week. In a household this big, there's always something fresh to talk about and old news is no news at all," she said.

"I pray you are correct," he said, balancing Noct as the baby bounced up and down on his feet.

"If I'm lying you can always fire me." She gave him a wry look.

"I think not. Who will smuggle my children in to see me while I am confined to my bed, then?"

"You should make more friends of your servants—" She stopped abruptly and there was a stricken look on her face. "—that is—I don't mean to say—"

Months of regular contact and she was still vacillating between that servant who remembered she was speaking to her king and the sharp-tongued young woman underneath. Regis silenced her with a look, calming her doubts—or so he hoped—with an indulgent smile.

"Far be it from me to stand on ceremony with someone who has seen me at my worst and still wishes to call me a friend. I would consider myself lucky indeed to count you among mine."

Crea smiled, her whole face bright. Noctis gave a wordless squeal of delight.

"Noctis agrees," Regis observed, pulling the squirming child into a hug once more and planting a scratchy kiss on his chubby cheek.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Crea.

"Come now, we have just discussed this," Regis said, "I am Regis to my friends."

"Thank you… Regis." There was hesitation, but she managed quite well, overall.

"She makes a solid start," Regis told the wriggling prince.

Noctis babbled incoherently, a little furrow on his little brow.

"I know, Little Prince. I quite agree. But it _is_ only her first attempt. I expect she will improve in time."

Crea smiled, her eyes sparkling with unreleased laughter. "I'll practice before I see you, next."

Against the king's chest, the prince continued his unintelligible stream of sounds.

"He says you have much to learn, yet," Regis told her matter-of-factly.

"I know, Your Highness, but I do my best," Crea told the still-chattering prince. "I know. I _understand_. I am listening, but—oh, very well. In the future I will try harder."

Apparently satisfied by this promise, Noctis desisted. The furrow was gone from his brow and he resumed his bouncing, this time punctuating each one with a raspberry.

"I'll take that as approval," Crea said.

"It is no use arguing with him. He will always get his own way," Regis agreed.

And he did, for the most part.


	25. Great Strides

The following day, Regis was released from house arrest and sent back to work. Clarus arrived in the morning, looking appropriately disapproving and Regis could hardly blame him for it. He had done a stupid thing and everyone else had nearly paid dearly for it. Other people could afford to be irresponsible now and then, but not the king and certainly never _that_ irresponsible.

"Eat. You'll need it. When was the last time you had a meal?"

Regis took the tray of food that Clarus thrust under his nose with uncharacteristic meekness.

"I am uncertain," he admitted.

For all that Clarus had almost certainly known that already, he still made a derisive sound. He took a seat in the nearby armchair without further comment, however, and Regis was grateful for it. There was silence for a time, while Regis picked at his breakfast obediently, in spite of the fact that his stomach hadn't yet given up its protest over the previous day's treatment.

Usually when they sat in silence together it was comfortable; it was the sort of silence that followed when two people knew each other so well that there was no need for words and no obligation to say them. This silence, though, was thick and tense. There were a multitude of words that either one of them could have said but ninety percent of them wouldn't have done any good. Clarus had said enough of them, the day before, anyway; he had made it clear what he believed about Regis' lapse. Clarus thought him an incompetent, an idiot. Perhaps Regis should have apologized for his failure to meet expectations, but something told him it would do little good.

Eventually Regis gave up on his breakfast, having made it only halfway through, and cleared his throat to break the silence. Clarus didn't look at him.

"You are right, Clarus, of course. You usually are," he ventured. "I cannot afford to act in this way."

At first it seemed his friend intended not to respond. He sat still, not looking over or giving any indication that he had heard at all. If he had chosen not to, Regis would have accepted that he deserved that, too.

But at length, he did respond. "It kills me to know that you hurt so much inside that it has stripped you of all regard for yourself. My place is the King's Shield and perhaps I can protect you from yourself… but I can't stop what you're feeling. I can't shield you from that."

Regis was more than a little taken aback. So Clarus wasn't angry with him, after all, or, at the very least, not anymore.

"That is not your job," Regis said. The problems that Aulea's death were causing for him were his and his alone to battle with. There was no way he could think of putting that burden on Clarus.

"No?" Clarus looked at him at last, his expression solemn and melancholy. "Perhaps it isn't. Be that as it may, I would do so if I was able."

"Clarus…" Regis sat forward, running his hands through his messy hair. For once he was at a loss for words. What did one say to such an admission? "I… will manage it."

Clarus sighed and stood. "I know. You will persevere, as you always do—but knowing you can do it doesn't stop me from wishing you didn't need to," he said, meeting Regis' gaze. "Just—in the future—if it becomes too much to bear, please come to me instead of resorting to more desperate measures."

Regis swallowed, finding his mouth suddenly dry. It took a moment for him to gather his voice again. "I will."

Whether or not Clarus believed him, he gave a short nod and moved for the door. "I'll send someone to help you dress. Then I'll collect you for court."

He left Regis to his thoughts and to make himself presentable. True to his word, he sent Weskham with a fresh suit and all the necessaries for a well-groomed beard and head of hair.

"Is he still angry with you?" Weskham asked as he helped Regis into his formal wear.

"Clarus? No. He is merely worried." Much like Weskham and Cor and everyone else who knew anything at all about what was going on.

The look on Weskham's face said he didn't believe that even concern excused Clarus' words, but he didn't say anything else. He just continued putting Regis' suit and hair in order. When all of that was seen to, Regis did feel a little more himself. He looked a little more himself, as well.

"You have performed a miracle," Regis said, inspecting himself in the mirror.

"That's my job, Sire."

It seemed an apt description.

"Come. Let us see if we cannot find Clarus to fill in what I have missed," Regis said.

Weskham held the door open for him and fell into place half a step behind him as they moved down the hall. At least this time he had only missed one day. He hoped it would be the last day he missed on Aulea's behalf, but the ache in his chest prevented him from hoping _too_ much.

"I believe he went to check in with the council, Sire," Weskham said.

"Then the council chamber is where we must go. There is—"

"Your Majesty!"

Regis stopped at the sound of Crea calling back from the direction they had just come. She appeared in the doorway to the nursery down the hall and motioned.

"Come quickly!"

He didn't even hesitate long enough to return the look that Weskham gave him. The look on Crea's face was excited rather than worried, but being summoned urgently to the nursery formed an anxious lump in his stomach all the same. He went, Crea retreating back through the open nursery door just before him.

Inside was a second nurse; at her feet, standing unaided, was Reina in a little purple dress.

The anxiety vanished all at once. Everything else vanished, too. He forgot about the fourth anniversary of his wedding, spent without his wife. He forgot about Clarus' harsh words from the night before. He forgot about all the work he had missed in his day abed. He forgot about the nurses standing about watching him. The only thing left was his little girl standing on her own two feet.

Regis took a knee on the nursery floor and held out his hands to her. She smiled when he crossed her line of vision and clapped her hands together once.

"Reina… come here, my darling." He held out his hands to her, waiting, _hoping_.

She looked at him for a moment, hands still pressed together in front of her, four little teeth still displaying in her open mouth. Then she took a step. And another. Her whole body wobbled with each step; so much effort went into moving just one leg.

Regis' breath caught in his throat. His vision blurred but, for once, it wasn't pain that brought tears.

His little princess! _Walking!_

They were just short of a year old and in all those months he had been preparing himself to miss every major milestone. This one, though, they had shared.

Reina's balance slipped. She stumbled and landed on her hands and knees. It wasn't very far to fall, but he had to resist the urge to lurch forward and catch her. Something held him back. He wanted to know if she would do it again.

"Come on, Little Princess," he said.

She stared at him for another moment before straightening her knees, putting her butt in the air, and somehow managing to push herself upright from that position. Instead of resorting to the more reliable mode of transportation of crawling, she took more shaky steps, one after the other, until they landed her straight in Regis' arms.

He caught her, lifting her off her feet in spite of the fact she had only just gotten up on them, and stood to spin her around. "Ah, Reina! I am so proud of you."

She laughed at the treatment. He laughed at her laughter. Something about baby laughter was contagious—except she wasn't a baby anymore.

 _I have a toddler,_ he realized.

"—Regis!"

He turned toward the door, automatically shifting to hold Reina against his chest as he found Clarus pushing past Weskham. His Shield looked more than a little flustered.

"What is it?" Regis sobered. It took considerable trouble to put that look on Clarus' face.

Clarus let out a breath, then hesitated, his eyes flicking toward Crea and the other nurse. "Apologies, Your Majesty. It's nothing to concern you; but we should be on our way."

It seemed an odd and sudden shift, but after a moment the pieces fit together in Regis' mind. The immediate concern, the hesitation—almost embarrassment—followed by an unwillingness to speak openly: all of it added up. Regis had disappeared and his faithful Shield had been worried.

Regis gave him a tight smile. While it was perfectly reasonable, considering, it was still unnecessary. The previous day's misadventure was not one he intended to repeat any time soon. He had to do better in the future.

"I was drawn by an event of the utmost importance." Regis turned and pressed a kiss to the top of his daughter's head before stooping to set her back on her feet. It took some coaxing to convince her to let go of his hands and stand on her own, but she did eventually do so. Regis looked up to behold the smile on Clarus' face.

"That _is_ of the utmost importance," Clarus agreed.

"She walked to me. Will you show Clarus, my dear?" Regis pointed to the doorway where Clarus and Weskham were still standing. Reina looked where he gestured, a look of deep distrust on her tiny face. Then she half turned, as if to back away, stumbled, and fell against Regis' legs.

"A definitive 'no,'" Clarus said.

"What can I say? She is destined to be her father's little princess." He didn't regret it at all. In fact, he would have been more disappointed if she _had_ gone to Clarus.

"Court, Your Majesty," Clarus reminded, though he was still smiling.

"Very well. I wish you a joyous day, my darling." Regis detached Reina from his leg and deposited her on the play mat, straightening and turning to the door. He paused when he passed Crea, giving her a grateful look. "Thank you."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

He _would_ do better. For them.

"Let us be off, then." He turned toward the door again and accompanied Clarus and Weskham out into the hall. The nurses bid them both farewell as they departed, but even once they were out of earshot, Clarus remained conspicuously silent.

"I apologize for causing you concern," Regis said at last. "But you needn't worry. I told you I believe you are right, and I meant it. I will do better."

Clarus cast him a sideways glance, though Regis couldn't decide if it was curious or disbelieving; perhaps it was a little of each. "I was harsh yesterday, and for that I apologize," he said at last. "I hope you don't take it all to heart—of course I do not believe your children would be better off without you."

"There is nothing to apologize for," Regis said. "You are correct; they do deserve someone who will fight for them. How could I give up, with those two watching me and you all beside me?" He grasped Clarus' shoulder briefly, then Weskhams, and Clarus returned the gesture.

"As we always will be," Weskham said.

"I am certain of it," Regis said. "Now come; the kingdom awaits."


	26. On the Mend

_To whom it may concern—_

Regis read.

— _I am writing to keep His Majesty abreast of developments on the case of our patient, Spero Perdita. Very little has changed since my last missive: after two months in our care, Mr Perdita has arrived at a point that I would describe as stable. He continues to tolerate the moderate dose of medication well and I see no reason why he shouldn't do so indefinitely. He gives no further indication of hallucinations—neither auditory nor visual. He has an understanding of the truth of his wife's passing and he reports no further desires to harm himself or others. It is my opinion that all remaining woes are a natural result of the grieving process, which he will move past in time: for instance, he is reclusive, in spite of reports of his social nature before the death of his wife._

 _Physically, his health is much improved as well. A regular diet has restored some of his previous weight, though he was never a large man, and proper nutrients have halted further hair loss. We intend not to hold him for much longer: if he remains on the proper dose of medication, I see no reason why he cannot regain his independence, as he so clearly desires. If it suits His Majesty, it can be arranged for someone to check on him at regular intervals to ensure his health._

 _There is one final thing of note. Mr Perdita has stated multiple times that he has something to deliver to His Majesty, but insists that no one but the king can know what it is. As such, I can give no hint as to what he refers, but to write that he does so._

 _Your Loyal Servant,_

 _Doctor Sal Medens_

Regis fingered the corner of the page, reading over the last paragraph one more time before looking up to watch the city scenery pass by through the Regalia's window. He could guess what Spero was referring to. When they had last spoken, Regis had asked for help tying the crimes committed at Phoenix Incorporated back to Bastien Kurick. At the time, Spero seemed to think he _did_ have such a thing in his possession: emails, he had said. Then again, at the time, Spero had not been of sound mind.

Wishful thinking, perhaps, but Regis meant to find out anyway. If Spero said he wasn't going to pass the information to anyone but the king, then Regis was inclined to believe that. Besides, he was anxious to see how Spero was faring with his own eyes. That was the only thing that would cure him of those haunting images from their last meeting.

"We're here, Your Majesty." Cor glanced at him in the mirror and Regis looked up, pulled from his thoughts.

"Thank you, Cor," Regis said, folding the letter and tucking it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

His door opened for him, held from the outside by one of the crownsguards that had accompanied in a second car. Even inside the Wall, Cor was loath to let him travel without a full guard. Indeed, even inside the Citadel, these days, Clarus had half the staff following his every move. Perhaps it was for the best, given what he had recently proved he was capable of when left to his own devices.

"Your Majesty." Lieutenant Ackers bowed as Regis stepped forth from the Regalia. Regis gave him a nod of acknowledgement before moving for the steps.

Cor fell into step beside him.

The psychiatric hospital was the only one of its specialty in Insomnia. Indeed, in all of Lucis because beyond the Wall that closed the Crown City from the rest of the kingdom, there was very little in the way of technical or medical advances. It was housed in an older building, away from the business bustle of downtown Insomnia, but still within the upper city. As such, its predominant features were carved stone statues—in the likeness of Lucian monarchs or the Gods personified—and dusty glass windows inlaid with iron. It was a beautiful piece of architecture. He only hoped that extended to what lay within, as well.

"King Regis!"

It was Doctor Medens, Regis' correspondent, who met them at the top of the stairs with a bow.

"I am so pleased you were able to find the time to visit. Mr Perdita will be happy to see you." Dr Medens was a tall man, but not a big one. He was dressed well, but his appearance wasn't altogether tidy. Perhaps it was due to the fact that his shirt was buttoned one hole off.

"That is my hope," Regis said, following as the doctor led the way inside.

Dr Medens glanced sideways at him and Regis didn't miss the hesitation. "To be perfectly frank, Your Majesty, I have yet to witness Mr Perdita to be truly pleased about anything—and this in spite of reports that he was once a joyous fellow."

"But he does smile." Regis made it a statement rather than a question. His tone, perhaps, was more sharp than he had intended.

"You've seen his smiles, then? Peculiar. Truly. Most people smile to indicate kinship in one way or another: we laugh together and feel attached, you smile at a friend when you pass on the street, a nervous smile in an uncomfortable position—even—may be due to a desire for acceptance or to be passed over as non-threatening. Mr Perdita on the other hand, applies the expression in an opposite way. _His_ smiles unsettle the beholder and make you feel apart from him—make you feel as if you want to _remain_ apart from him." Dr Medens gestured while he spoke and walked while he gestured. His steps, like his words, grew steadily more rapid as he explained. "It is my belief that this connects back to his reclusivity. He maintains a desire for solitude in his grief. He _seeks_ it. And so he turns his every action into a projection of that desire—oh. Here we are, then. I do apologize. I can get carried away with these things."

He stopped outside a door and bowed once more to Regis. "Forgive me, Your Majesty."

"Not at all," Regis said. "I appreciate you passion."

"Well—thank you." He flashed a smile and turned to knock on the door. From inside, Regis could just faintly hear the sound of a violin—this time it was a proper tune, rather than the disjointed scratching that Spero had produced the last time Regis had heard him with the instrument.

"Come in," Spero's voice called from inside. The music didn't halt.

Dr Medens cracked the door open and stuck his head inside. "His Majesty has arrived, Mr Perdita."

"Are you going to make him stand in the hall?" Spero's voice responded.

The doctor took a step back, giving Regis and Cor another apologetic look, and motioning them toward the open door. "If you need anything else, any orderly will be able to find me, Your Majesty."

"Thank you, Doctor." Regis gave him a nod and stepped inside.

The room beyond the door was an odd mix of hospital room and apartment. There was more furniture than the hospital rooms that Regis had seen, before, but it held a sterile quality that apartments lacked. There was nothing on the walls—though they had been painted a warm tan, perhaps in an effort to make it seem more homey—and every flat piece of furniture—the dresser, the desk, the little table—was devoid of any personal items. This, Regis suspected, was Spero's own doing. They had passed more than one open door, beyond which the rooms were cozily decorated.

"Hello, Your Majesty." Spero lay across the bed against the far wall. His violin rested on his stomach while he drew the bow languidly across the strings. After a few notes he stopped and turned his head toward them.

"Hello, Spero. How are you feeling?" Regis crossed to the desk beside the bed and pulled out the chair to seat himself.

"Bored out of my mind," Spero said. "Did you know there are five-hundred ninety-three knots in this ceiling?"

Regis turned his eyes upward. The ceiling was paneled with wooden beams and, apparently, together they contained five-hundred ninety-three knots.

"I'm sorry—I shouldn't use that phrase in a mental hospital. I am bored. I am _not_ out of my mind." He heaved a sigh and pushed himself upright. "Would that I were. It was much more fun."

"I hope you do not regret coming here," Regis said. For his part, he didn't regret sending Spero back to the hospital. "You look much better."

It was just as Dr Medens had said: he no longer looked so much like a skeleton with waxy skin stretched tight over the top. His eyes fit his head and his head fit his neck. His hair appeared thin, but not quite so wispy and brittle. On the underside of his forearms there were only thin, smooth scars to remind them of how he had been.

"Do I?" Spero asked. "I feel much worse."

Somehow, Regis felt he wasn't talking about physically. The wild look was gone from his gaze, replaced, instead, with something slow and mournful. For all those months, he had been able to hide away his grief in the madness. Now he didn't even have that to fall back on. Regis could understand the feeling.

"I would like to be able to tell you it gets easier… but it still hurts," Regis said.

Spero set his violin down on the bed beside him and ran his hands over his face. "It always hurts."

"Will you face it, anyway?"

"What choice have I?" Spero looked up at him.

"I hope, someday, it will not be simply because you have no other choice."

"Well you still owe me something," Spero said. "And I have to finish my book for you. Speaking of owing—I have what you asked for. That's why you came, isn't it?"

"In part. Though I fully appreciate seeing you on the mend." Regis straightened in his chair, watching as Spero leaned forward and grabbed the laptop off the desk.

"'On the mend.' A peculiar turn of phrase." Spero opened the computer. After a few keystrokes, he picked it back up and held it out to Regis. "This is what you're looking for?"

Regis took the computer. Displayed on screen was an email, ostensibly from Bastien Kurick himself. Regis' eyes flicked over the text, his amazement growing with each passing word. He couldn't believe their luck. It detailed the how and where of the dumping that had occurred. If Kain's team could trace it back to Kurick, they had him as good as jailed already.

"This is _precisely_ what we are looking for." Regis lifted the computer and passed it to Cor.

"Good. Then you can get that bastard. Lucky, though. It seems they've been doing a tidy clean-up job, but that when they fired me, I disappeared from their system. That little gem escaped notice. Until now." He pointed to the computer with the bow of his violin

"Can we take this computer?" Regis asked. "My men will require it to perform the trace."

"Fine, fine," Spero waved the bow, unconcerned. "It's Phoenix's computer, anyway. They cut their losses with me. Foolishly, as it turns out."

"Thank you, Spero. This will help immeasurably; your wife will see justice."

Spero nodded, mute, for once. His eyes shone bright with unshed tears. It was the first time Regis had witnessed him showing such an emotion.

"You're really not going to arrest me for taking part in that?" He asked at length.

"Of course not. We want Kurick, not those that he manipulated into doing his dirty work for him," Regis said. "No. You focus on feeling better: write your book; play your violin. I will see that Elaisse has her justice."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

Regis held out a hand and Spero took it. "I am merely Regis to you, if you wish."

A smile tugged at the corner of Spero's mouth. It wasn't a mad flash of teeth with an unblinking gaze. It wasn't an unsettling, unamused smirk. It was a smile—or half of one, at least.

"I never thought I'd be friends with the king."

"I, on the other hand, have the luxury of always expecting to find myself in the company of brilliant and talented individuals who I am blessed to call 'friend'." Regis pressed Spero's hand. "Take care of yourself, my friend."


	27. Beginning and End

" _Everyone is in position, Marshal."_

The voice issued from Cor's radio. Halfway across Insomnia, two dozen crownsguards were standing at the ready, prepared to implement the final raid on Phoenix Incorporated. From the window in his office, Regis could just see the top of the building that housed their headquarters, but it was much too far to see any of those who now gathered around the exits.

"Do what you came to do, Lieutenant. Kurick is a businessman, not a thug, but he's still a criminal. Don't take any chances and _don't_ let any of them out." Cor spoke into the radio, though it was Regis he looked at as he did so.

" _Copy, Marshal. On our way."_

How long had it been since they started chasing him? Nearly a year, surely. It had been autumn when the sickness spread through lower Insomnia, landing hundreds in hospitals across the city and spawning pandemonium in the lower class. Now it was late summer again and finally they had cause to arrest Kurick and his collaborators. Regis had Spero to thank for that.

Looking back, the whole ordeal felt like a nightmare. It wasn't just that his people were being killed by neglect inside the Wall—that would have been bad enough—but the timing had always felt intentional. Take advantage of the king's mourning, strike while he was at his weakest, and escape, unscathed, having committed dozens of murders.

But no longer.

" _We have him, Marshal. Kurick is in custody."_

"And the others?" Cor asked.

" _Being rounded up as we speak, Sir."_

"Good work, Lieutenant. I'll meet you at the lockup." To Regis, Cor added: "Did you intend to come along, Your Majesty?"

Did he want to see that snake, Bastien Kurick, take his last breath of free air before he was locked behind bars for what remained of his life? The honest answer was yes. It would have been undignified, however, to spit at his feet and shout 'I told you so,' which was what Regis really wanted to do.

Regis sighed. "No. I will see more than enough of him at the sentencing. Until then, let him rot. Perhaps it will take the edge off his arrogance."

"You can't cure narcissism, Your Majesty."

"Perhaps not. All the same, I will wait."

* * *

One year ago to the day, Aulea had given birth to two beautiful babies. People always joked that newborns were the farthest thing from cute: red, splotchy, bald, and wrinkled. Maybe he had been biased. Probably he had been biased. Regardless, that evening, holding them in his arms, he couldn't remember having ever seen something more beautiful—excepting his own wife, but that was a different sort of beauty altogether.

Now they were both walking, and Regis would have labelled them the sweetest things on two legs. It didn't matter that their steps were often unsteady and frequently punctuated by falling on their sweet little noses. They were still perfect.

For once, the weather was cooperating. It was as beautiful a day as he could have wanted for them: the perfect sort of day for falling over in the garden—instead of in the nursery—pulling leaves off of bushes, and putting dirt in one's mouth. In short, it was the sort of day when Regis _was_ thankful that there were extra eyes on watch and extra hands to give baths at the end of the day.

"Well," Crea said as she lifted Noctis out of the bushes and picked twigs from his hair. "It _was_ a nice outfit for about twenty minutes."

Regis turned his back on the sunset and beheld the state of his son's attire. It had once been black—a miniature imitation of Regis' own suit—but it was now more than a little brown. He smiled. It was just as well that they had taken pictures _before_ releasing the budding little monsters out to play in the dirt.

"Noctis! Come here, Little Prince." Regis crouched on the garden path, careful to keep his own knees out of the dirt, and held his hands out.

Noctis squirmed free of Crea's hold and toddled as fast as his little legs would take him, giggling all the way. Even after a month, Regis hadn't grown tired of watching them walk on their own. He never would.

When Noct hit his chest, Regis scooped him up into his arms, brushing away the last of the leaves that Crea hadn't yet removed.

"Are you ready for dinner, Little Prince? I believe there is a birthday cake twice as big as you are waiting. Shall we go see?"

"Coo!" said Noctis.

Regis blinked at him. They always made sounds—arguably ones that made sense in some unknown language—but never had either of the twins appeared so clearly to be _responding_ to something with a sound.

"Does it mean something?" He asked, looking up at Crea.

She sighed. "I'm afraid we made the mistake of introducing Noctis to C-O-O-K-I-E-S, and now every time he hears 'dinner', that's what he wants."

"Coo!"

It took a moment for the information to sink in. Not because he had to think about the spelling of 'cookies,' but because all the little pieces, presented so nonchalantly, added up to something very significant.

"So it is a word," Regis said at last.

"Such as it is, yes. He knows the meaning of it, he associates the sounds with the object, he's just working on reproducing the whole thing."

"His _first word_."

Crea smiled like she was trying not to laugh. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"My son, and his first word is _cookie_." Regis couldn't decide whether to laugh or to cry, or both at the same time.

"Coo, coo, _coooooo!_ " Noctis bounced up and down in his arms, tugging at the front of Regis' coat.

"Now you've done it, Your Majesty," Crea said.

But Regis didn't care. He didn't care if Noctis only wanted to eat cookies for the rest of the night or for the rest of the year.

"Clarus! Noctis has a first word!"

Farther down the garden walk, Clarus turned from a conversation with his wife. "It isn't 'poo,' is it? We couldn't get Gladio to shut up about poop for at least six months."

"Cookie!" Regis had never been more excited about cookies since he was Noctis' age.

"Coo! _Coo! COO!_ " Noctis yelled.

"That's much better," Clarus said. "What about Reina?"

Reina was off the path, exploring a round-leafed bush in her own particular way. Whereas Noctis had bounded headfirst into the bush, Reina stood at the edge of the planter and patted the leaves gently, as if she believed it was a dog. Behind her, Gladio watched for a few moments before stooping to wrap his arms around her waist and lift her off her feet.

"Gladiolus, _no_. What have I told you? We do _not_ pick up the princess." Fidelia was on him in an instant, coaxing her son into setting the wide-eyed Reina back on her feet.

Clarus turned his back and covered his mouth to hide his smile. Regis didn't even do that much.

"Coo!" Noctis yelled.

"Does Reina have a first word?" Regis asked Crea, once he felt certain he could speak without laughing.

"None so far," Crea said, unconcerned.

"Is that unusual?" Clarus asked. "I thought most children said _something_ by their first birthday."

Crea shook her head. "Some do, some don't. She certainly _understands_ some words and she makes sounds, they're just not associated with anything in particular. With Noctis shouting about cookies all the time—"

"— _Cooooo—!_ "

"—I bet she has a first word within a month. After all, Noct was walking just a week after Reina. Sometimes I think they're competing," Crea finished, as if she hadn't been interrupted by the hungry prince.

"Of course they are," Clarus said. "They're siblings. They'll be competing for the rest of their lives."

Regis smiled. "Let us eat—Weskham, is everything prepared?"

"Yes, Sire. They only await the word to serve dinner."

"Give the word, then."

Weskham bowed and went on ahead to do as he was bidden. The remainder of the party, which contained—in addition to the royal family and the Amicitias—Cor, three different nursemaids, and a handful of attendants, continued along the garden path to the gazebo, where a table was laid out and decorated. It must have been one of the most lavish parties that had ever been thrown in honor of children who would later have no memory of the event. First birthdays were really, Regis reasoned, for the parents. The only thing missing was the second half of 'parent _s_ '.

Regis sighed inwardly, lips tightening at the reminder of Aulea's absence. She would have been overjoyed to celebrate with them, if she had lived.

"Regis?"

Regis pulled himself from his dark thoughts and looked down at Crea. She was watching him expectantly; it made him believe he had missed whatever she had said before.

"Pardon my inattentiveness," Regis said.

"Do you want Noctis to sit with you or in his seat? I think he can be convinced to remain at the table a little longer in his own chair," she repeated.

"Then we will give him his own chair." Regis hadn't forgotten what trying to eat with a baby in his lap was like: amusing, but not especially productive.

When all were seated, Regis held the head of the table with Reina and Noct at either side, sitting at chairs that clipped to the edge of the table. Beyond them were their nurses and Crea, and farther along sat Clarus and his family, Cor, and—when he returned—Weskham.

Some day in the future, the twins would be old enough to choose their own birthday dinner, but for this year they had whatever it was Crea declared was on the menu for one-year-olds. The remainder of the party was served in courses, starting with a light tomato bisque and moving on through salad, glazed pheasant, a selection of cheeses, and eventually culminating in the traditional birthday cake.

Noctis was, predictably, objectionate.

"Coo, _coo, COO!_ " He slammed his hands on his plate. Across the table, Reina regarded him with a stony expression as she picked up a blueberry and put it in her mouth.

"Does he like cake?" Regis asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did," Crea said.

"We shall soon find out."

Already the servers were bringing out the chef's elaborate creation: it was three-tiered and wrapped up like a present, all black with gold ribbons cascading around it. Atop stood two tiny figures with black hair and blue eyes; between them, a single candle sparkled. That, it turned out, was only the first half. In addition to the multi-layered cake, there were two individually decorated cakes, each labeled with a name and a block number 1.

Crea intercepted Noctis' before it landed in front of him, then hesitated, looking at Regis.

"I don't usually let them have sweets unless they've actually eaten some dinner."

Regis waved a hand, unconcerned. "Surely an exception can be made. It _is_ his birthday."

After a moment, Crea traded Noctis' untouched dinner for the personalized cake, though she looked as if she did so against her better judgement.

"Coo!" Noctis squealed.

"Cake," Regis corrected. "By all means, my son, demolish it."

Whether or not Noctis had any idea what the word 'demolish' meant, he certainly needed no more prompting. Two tiny fists smashed down on top of the flawless surface, tearing through the delicately lettered ' _Noctis Lucis Caelum'_ that adorned the top.

On Regis' left, Reina sat, still studying her own cake with uncertainty.

"One year old and already you play the part of a mild-mannered princess." Regis motioned for a servant. "Slice this for her. Princesses do not smash cakes."

Across the table, Noctis shoved a handful of crumbs and chocolate into his mouth.

"Unlike princes," Regis said.

The servant, hiding a smile, retrieved a knife and hurried to do as she was bidden. Once the piece of cake was laid out before her, Reina was convinced to try a bite off of Regis' fork. She liked it enough to continue on her own.

"Your Majesty."

Regis looked up as a new attendant entered the gazebo. The attendant stopped, just at the edge beside him, and bowed deeply.

"Pardon the interruption, Sire, but there is a man in the Citadel requesting an audience with you. He claims that you will wish to see him."

Regis set his fork down, brow furrowing. "His name?"

"One Spero Perdita, Your Majesty."

"Indeed, I do. Have him escorted here." Regis motioned in dismissal and the attendant bowed once more before disappearing.

Down the table, Clarus raised an eyebrow at him. "I thought he was in the hospital."

Regis seemed to hear an objection in his tone. Clarus, perhaps, could still only remember Spero as the unstable wreck they had taken to the psychiatric ward several months previously. If that was what he thought, then he had a surprisingly poor grasp on what it meant to be human.

"He may well have been released," Regis said.

They didn't have long to wait to find out. Spero arrived, in the company of the same attendant who had brought his message, and Regis rose to greet him.

He _looked_ better.

A few weeks ago he had appeared physically well but mentally distressed. Now when he took Regis' hand, he smiled and it looked real. It didn't set them apart; it brought them together.

"Spero. How are you faring?"

"Quite well, actually—I'm sorry; I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner."

"No, no. It is practically finished, in any case," Regis said. Indeed, even as they spoke places were being cleared away and his dinner guests were rising to drift a respectable distance from the king's conversation. "We celebrate the first birthday of the little prince and princess."

"Oh, is that so? I had no notion." Spero's eyes wandered and settled on the children still seated at the table. Noctis, the front of his birthday frock smeared with frosting and cake crumbs, was receiving an abridged bath, while Reina only had her hands and face to be wiped clean before Regis felt justified in plucking her out of her chair.

"This is my little Reina and that messy little monster is Noctis."

Spero lifted one hand to wave to Reina. She stared at him for a moment before waving back; the motion used her whole arm and brought a smile to his face. A true smile.

"A little slice of perfection," Spero said. "I understand now. _This_ is how you can carry on."

His words hinted at sadness, but neither his voice nor his expression betrayed any. He merely looked calm, even content with the knowledge that Regis had his children to hold onto while Spero had none.

Regis passed Reina back to her nurse. "They mean everything to me. But I daresay you did not come to hear me wax poetic about my children."

"No, indeed—not that I mind!—I came for two reasons. To give you this—" he held out a stack of loose leaf papers, bound together with brown string "—and to thank you."

"What is this?" Regis took the packet of paper and turned it over in his hands. It was at least two inches thick of solid paper.

"My manuscript."

"Ah, you have completed it!" Regis flipped through the edge of the papers, looking back up at Spero. "Excellent! How did you find it?"

"Oh, I'll let you decide that for yourself," Spero said. "It's quite a journey. I hope you enjoy it."

"I shall—but have you given me your only copy? I will have to make certain it finds its way back to you when I am through."

Spero waved a hand as if to brush away the words. "Don't concern yourself. There's no rush. No rush at all."

"All the same."

"I also wanted to thank you." Spero ran his hands over his forearms, as if recalling the bandages that he had once worn beneath his sleeves. In spite of the motion, he met Regis' gaze and held it. "You arrested Kurick."

"As I swore I would." Regis didn't break his gaze, either. There was something weighty about it. Something that begged not to be put aside.

"Even so: thank you. We can finally rest easy, now. It's all because of you."

"You are very welcome, though it was more than half your own efforts that allowed us to put Kurick away at last."

"And thank you for the rest, as well." Spero, apparently, had no interest in taking credit for Kurick's arrest. As ever, he was focused on what he wished to say. Never before, though, had Regis seen him so solemn. "Everything you've done for me all along. _Thank you_."

Regis was at a loss for what to say in the face of such sudden, earnest gratitude. He didn't deserve it, but he took it anyway. For some reason it felt important that he accept it.

"You are welcome."

"They've let me go home, now, so I'll be going back to my apartment. But you don't have to worry about me, anymore." Spero ran his fingers through his hair. None of it caught in his fingers or came out in clumps, this time. "I'm going to congregate with my old friends… have a drink or two… and remember Elaisse. I just wanted to let you know that you made this peace possible. I'm content."

"And full pleased am I to hear it." Regis smiled, clasping Spero's shoulder. "You deserve some peace, at last."

"I think I do." Spero smiled in return. "Thank you, Regis. And goodbye."

"Goodbye, my friend. Until we meet again." Regis released his shoulder as he stepped away. He watched him leave with a wave and for a few hours it seemed all was right in _that_ world, at least.

* * *

And that was it. One farewell off his list, one debt paid, one friendship in order. Out of them all, Regis would understand best. It was just a shame about the violin.

"One down, three to go," Spero said.

The attendant gave him a curious look. "Sir?"

"Sorry. I wasn't speaking to you." That was the problem with other people hanging around.

"After tonight, we'll be together again," Elaisse said.


	28. Race Against

_There's still light at the bottom of a well, you know—_ Regis read—

 _I couldn't really tell for sure until I fell in, head first and boots last, scraping on the stone, to plunge face-first into the black liquid ice below, and—lungs burning, coughing, gasping, feet kicking—turned my eyes back up to stare at that little circle of light overhead. So far away._

In the quiet of his temporary rooms, Regis looked up from the loose pages in his lap. It had been, by all accounts, a lovely evening: his friends all gathered together to celebrate the first birthday of his children, Noctis with his first words, Spero dropping by unexpectedly to deliver those pages that Regis now read and seeming—as far as Regis could tell—very much better than he had been for months.

In spite of that, something about the encounter troubled him. He played through the visit in his mind. Spero smiling, thanking him… why did that bother him so much?

His mind stuck on a handful of words.

 _I understand now,_ Spero had said, _This is how you can carry on._

Intuitively, he felt the root of his discomfort was there, in those two sentences, but though he ran them over and over in his head, he couldn't put his finger on the problem.

 _This is how you can carry on._

This _is how you can carry on…_

What was it about those words that troubled him so?

Regis set the unbound papers aside and walked the length of the room to the bathroom door and back.

 _This is how you can carry on…_

It sounded of understanding, of puzzle pieces clicking into places, and yet… there was a second half to the sentence, which Spero hadn't voiced.

 _...but I cannot._

Regis stopped mid step as his brain lit with comprehension.

 _This is how_ you _can carry on, but I cannot._

What was it Spero had said just before he left? Something about not needing to worry about him anymore. That he was going to see his friends. And why, after ten months, would he do something like that so suddenly?

To say the same thing he had said to Regis: 'goodbye'. In all the months Regis had known him, it was only tonight that he had ever said that word. Perhaps he was being foolish. After all, it wasn't so strange for people to say other such words—but, then again, Spero rarely said those, either.

 _Gods prove me wrong_ , Regis thought.

He wrenched open the door to his room, startling the crownsguards who stood outside but paid them no heed. They fell into step behind him as he swept down the hall. There was no walking around the Citadel without dogged steps, these days, but right now Regis didn't care. It wasn't as if Cor wouldn't know where he was in a moment, anyway.

The Citadel halls had never seemed so long before. Always, whenever he needed to be somewhere, they stretched endlessly. Cor's rooms should have been closer. He could have just sent a servant, but then he would have been left standing around and already he felt useless enough.

It took five minutes to reach Cor's door. It felt like fifty.

"Cor!" Regis pounded on the door.

It opened almost immediately. That was one benefit of being a king in a hurry.

"I need you to take me to the lower city. Immediately."

Only half a second passed while Cor stared at him with an open mouth. Then he was stepping into the hall, jaw snapping shut.

"Ready His Majesty's car. I want the Regalia at the Citadel steps ten minutes ago." He spoke into his radio, shutting his door behind him, then turned to the two crownsguards who had followed Regis from his room. "You two, with me."

 _I only pray we are not too late_ , Regis thought as his small retinue fell into step around him.

* * *

Fewer people crowded the streets at this time of night; a smaller crowd gathered outside Spero's apartment complex when the Regalia stopped at the curb. Regis didn't linger to shake hands or hold babies. He took the steps three at a time, leaving Cor and the others to catch up.

The last time Regis had stood outside the door to Spero's apartment, a steady barrage of disjointed violin notes had been audible. Tonight there was no sound.

 _Please, let me be wrong._

Regis knocked on the door.

Cor took a stance beside him, watching the halls, but nothing happened.

Regis pounded on the door.

"Spero?! Open this door at once!"

Down the hall, other doors opened. Spero's remained shut. No light glowed in the cracks around it; no sounds came from beyond.

He was probably asleep. It was rather late, after all. There was no reason to believe anything had happened, save that nagging feeling in the back of his mind.

Regis turned to Cor, taking a step back. "Open this door."

Cor gave him only a fleeting glance—as if to ascertain if he really did want the apartment door broken down. Whatever he saw on Regis' face was enough to convince him. He took the place in front of the door and planted one foot, swinging the other out to drive his boot against the wood near the handle. The door was cheap and soft, already falling apart—like the rest of the apartment. It splintered on impact and a second kick sent the door swinging in.

Inside, Regis groped for a lightswitch and found one where he expected it. The cramped apartment flooded with flickering yellow light. It was just the same as it had been months ago with one notable change: Spero sat at the overflowing desk, his arms flat across the surface, his head resting against the typewriter.

Asleep.

"Spero?" Regis picked his way through towers of books and mountains of paper. He must have been an uncannily deep sleeper to sleep through not only the shouting but the sound of his door crashing open.

Unless he wasn't asleep.

Regis' mind refused to register it at first. Even when he drew closer and the image became more clear, his brain couldn't make sense of what his eyes saw. Red was a strange color for mottling, wasn't it?

All at once, it was glaring before his eyes, like an optical illusion clicking in the opposite direction.

The blood wasn't just pooled on the desk: it was spattered on the walls and the window; it dotted Spero's white face and his white shirt; it dripped off the edge and made a dark spot on the stained carpet; it soaked into discarded papers; it drenched open books.

It was stupid, feeling for a pulse in that—he knew enough about physiology to know a person couldn't lose that much blood and live through it—but he felt anyway. He pressed his fingers against Spero's neck. His skin was cold.

"Spero…"

All he could see was Spero's face as the world blurred. Ashen skin, turned too pale, even for a sickly man. Messy hair, still growing back in. Smooth pink scars stretched over his exposed neck.

He was smiling.

 _Gods, why? Why this? I thought you were happy…_

He had been so content, that evening. Had it only been that evening? A few hours of time separated Regis from a Spero who was alive and well. But he had never really been well, had he?

"Your Majesty," Cor said.

Something was squeezing him from the inside out, crushing his lungs, wringing his stomach. The lights outside stretched in long lines until he couldn't see anything anymore. Regis put his hand down on the corner of the desk—mercifully finding a place that was free of blood—and hung his head. No sound escaped his clenched teeth, but tears joined the blood soaking into the carpet.

If only he had been there sooner. If only he had realized at the time how strange it was—how final that last farewell had felt. If only he hadn't let Spero leave. If only—

" _Regis_." Cor's hand landed on his shoulder.

"I know…" Regis said. He could stand there and dwell on 'what if's and 'should have's all year. It wasn't going to bring Spero back.

He straightened, passing a hand over his face to dry it, and turned away from the desk. The two crownsguards who had accompanied them were lingering in the doorway and Regis addressed them, now. "Call emergency services. There is nothing to be done for him, but that is the proper protocol. You will remain and ensure he is taken care of."

For his part, Regis needed to be out of that apartment.

"Your Majesty—" Cor spoke, but Regis didn't let him finish. He was going to object to leaving half the king's retinue behind. Regis didn't care.

"Assure them that I will see to all of the necessary arrangements for him," Regis said, stepping toward the door.

" _Sire_ ," Cor said with more feeling.

Regis turned and looked at him, prepared to shut down his objections with a glance. Instead he found Cor leaning over the desk, looking at the typewriter.

"This is for you," Cor said.

For a moment he couldn't fathom what Cor meant. He watched as Cor reached out and released the page from the typewriter. When Cor held it out, Regis took it.

 _Regis—_

He read.

 _This is what I wanted._

 _I know you'll come first. You're the only one who understood that I always meant to do it._

 _I'm sorry about the violin, but music comes from the heart. You understand: mine is gone. I hope you'll keep it. Maybe someday, someone else will make it sing for you. Someone with a heart so big it makes you forget the hole in yours._

 _Don't mourn me. This is what I wanted. I won't haunt you, like she does. This is what I always meant to happen, and I'm sorry I let you believe it could be stopped._

 _So go back to your castle, read that damn book, and understand:_

 _This is what I_

The last chain of senseless letters set in ink a grim reminder of what had followed.

Regis dropped his gaze from the page. The violin was laying on Spero's overburdened sofa, away from the mess that seeped off his desk. Regis scooped it up and held it cradled in his arms. No one of his circle could play it, but now that he thought of it he didn't want them to. The violin, like the manuscript, was Spero's legacy to him: something quiet they had shared together when no one else understood. Perhaps, someday, he _would_ find someone worthy of coaxing music from the strings once more.

Until then it would have a place inside the hollow of his heart.


	29. Closed Doors

A/N: I FORGOT YESTERDAY WAS WEDNESDAY. I'm so sorry. I don't even know what happened yesterday. Nothing, honestly.

Have a chapter. A day and a half late (I'm sorry!)

* * *

When his phone rang in the middle of the night, Clarus usually expected to find Weskham on the other end—perhaps even Regis, at a stretch—but never had he expected to find Cor. If it wasn't enough that he did, tonight, there was the added surprise that Cor was asking for his help.

"Clarus. I don't know what to do and—Gods help me, but you are better at this than I am. I'm concerned for Regis."

Clarus sat up, pushing back blankets and rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Better at what? What happened, Cor?"

"Spero Perdita is dead."

Dead? That couldn't be right. Surely Clarus' sleep-addled brain had confused words. Cor must have said… bread.

That made less sense.

"Dead?"

"He killed himself and Regis was the one to find him," Cor's voice said.

"Gods all…" Clarus swore and swung his legs out of bed. Beside him, Fidelia was already awake, sitting up. Perhaps the word 'dead' had caught her attention, even half-awake. He would have to take a moment to explain it wasn't Regis—though they had just left his company a few hours before and he had been in high spirits. Then again, so had Spero.

Now he was dead.

"I'll be there directly. Stay with him—or send Wes or someone, but don't leave him alone."

"I won't." It was the sort of staunch determination that Cor always held, but somehow Clarus was surprised at how willing he was to admit he was out of his depth. Thoughts for another time.

Clarus made a hasty explanation to Fidelia and left. He wasn't certain what to expect to find in the Citadel, but he planned to charge in head-first all the same. First Aulea, now Spero. Of course, Spero hadn't been anywhere near as close to Regis as Aulea, but he was…

Really, Clarus wasn't sure what he was. What he had been. A kindred spirit, perhaps? Another man who suffered the same pain and therefore, understood Regis'? Or had he just been someone to save? Regis always did have to save people. It was in his nature. That, Clarus suspected, was one of the reasons why he had fallen in love with Aulea—or perhaps the love had predated the complex and it had formed due to her. Either way, it seemed likely that was a contributing factor in Regis' connection to Spero. Now he was gone.

The Citadel, when Clarus arrived, was quiet. Deserted except for the night watch of the Crownsguard and the chance servant or two.

The light glowed under the door to Regis' study. Two crownsguards stood outside, confirming Clarus' suspicion that this was where Regis had withdrawn to. He knocked on the door and Cor answered it.

Without a word, Cor stepped aside and admitted him.

It wasn't all that surprising to find Regis seated in an armchair with a short glass of scotch and an empty look in his eyes. He didn't look up when Clarus approached, but he did speak, after a moment.

"I am growing weary of telling you that you should be home with your family, Clarus."

That was not what Clarus had expected. The firmness with which he spoke—it was the strength that the king wielded, not the floundering grief that had followed Regis for months, in every quiet moment. Indeed, it was very nearly a command to turn around and return home. The sort of command that one did not disobey.

Clarus froze. He glanced toward Cor, whose expression suggested he was caught off-guard just as badly as Clarus had been.

"Someday you may lose the choice. You will regret these nights spent carelessly abandoning them," Regis said.

"I would regret losing the choice to come to you, as well," Clarus said.

Regis looked up at him at last. His expression wasn't as sharp as Clarus had expected from his tone. He looked almost fond, if only for a moment.

"I know," he said.

"And I'm already here. Would you send me back to them?" If he did, Clarus would go. But he would go with his heart still heavy on concern.

Regis considered him for a moment. Eventually he shook his head, turning his eyes back toward the empty fireplace and taking a drink from his glass. "I suppose not."

Clarus let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He crossed the rest of the distance and sank onto the lounge. A violin rested on top of the coffee table; Clarus hadn't noticed it before. He also hadn't noticed that Regis held a single page of paper in his other hand. It was spattered with something dark reddish-brown.

"A violin?" Clarus asked.

Regis' eyes flicked toward it. "Spero's," he supplied.

It didn't really answer the question, but Clarus didn't prompt him further. Had Regis wanted to explain it, he would have. Even so…

"Do you want to talk about him?" Clarus asked.

"No." Regis shook his head, still looking at the violin. "Not tonight. It is too near to me."

Clarus nodded his understanding, but inside he felt a great sinking. Would it be too near for nine months, as it had been for Aulea? Would they do the same thing over again? Some things were already different—Regis' demeanor and all—but that didn't mean this wasn't a setback. How could it not be?

"However, as you are already here and we have established I intend not to send you away, you may as well come with me." Regis drained the rest of his drink and rose, setting the empty glass down on the coffee table.

Clarus hurried to his feet. "Where?"

"Into the dark."

* * *

The door looked exactly the same as it always had: neither more nor less intimidating than it had been for months. All of it was in his head. Aulea's ghost was in his head. The shadows that hung around the door to their bedroom were in his head. The insurmountable incompetence was in his head. Just as Spero's ghosts had all been in his head, so, too, were Regis'.

But Spero was free from his.

Regis laid his hand on the carved wood of the door. He couldn't escape the way Spero had. Such was the burden on his shoulders that he could never lay it down; even death held no rest for the kings of Lucis. He would not meet Aulea in the afterlife. He would remain bound to this world, protecting his kingdom, long after he had drawn his last breath.

The only thing he could do was turn and face his ghosts.

He pushed the door open. It didn't stick, as he had half-expected; it opened as smoothly as it had every time before. The servants continued to maintain his quarters, nine months since he had stopped using them. As pointless as it had seemed, before, he was grateful for it, now. To re-enter his rooms was hard enough. To enter and find them derelict and unkempt, laden with dust and stale from disuse would have been worse. It was just like visiting Aulea's grave and finding it without flowers. His fault.

One step inside he paused, shutting his eyes and reaching for the lightswitch. Even when the room flooded with light, he didn't look, not right away. Behind him he could hear Clarus and Cor lingering in the doorway, unspeaking, but not entirely silent.

He could see the room through his eyelids. The armchairs by the window, one draped with a blanket where Aulea always sat. It was dark outside, but the city light and the glow of the Wall lit Insomnia just on the other side of the glass. She didn't often stay up. When he was late in returning, he would find her curled up in bed, fast asleep with a book still in her hands as if she had meant to stay awake to greet him but had drifted off instead. Tonight, he wouldn't find her there.

Regis opened his eyes. The room was exactly as he had envisioned. Everything was untouched from the day she had passed, saved to tidy up. He passed the armchair with the blanket, the stack of books on the end table, the unfinished needlepoint, and came to stand in the doorway to his bedroom. The bed was made, untouched, and completely empty. Through the doorway beyond, the bathroom was tidy, though the countertop still held all the cosmetics that Aulea had kept. In those last months, she hadn't gotten to use them much. Now, like so much else, there was no purpose to them.

Aulea, my love. I miss you so much. Regis shut his eyes, standing in front of the sink. It still smelled of her, here. That perfume she always wore, sitting on the counter beside the hand cream. So many scents that he would always associate with her and would never experience again. They were just painful, now.

"Regis?" Clarus peered in through the open bathroom door. "Are you alright?"

Regis opened his eyes and looked up. He forced a smile. "It is not a word I would use, no."

"We don't have to do this tonight, you know."

Regis shook his head, straightening. "No, it is time. It is time to let go."

For both of us, Regis added silently.

Clarus nodded. "Where do we begin?"

* * *

It was a long night and a painful one. Four rooms interconnected to form Regis' chambers and each one had to be combed through meticulously. With each of Aulea's possessions, Regis answered a question: keep or discard? It shouldn't have been so difficult to throw away items that were of no use to anyone.

His friends made their best attempts at distracting him. Sometime past two in the morning, Weskham joined them. Regis didn't ask how he had known. He welcomed the company.

They spoke of Aulea. Every little piece that was kept or discarded had memories associated with it and Regis bled them out. For each choice of 'discard' he second-guessed himself. Cor guarded the bags so he didn't go back through them.

"Aulea's clothing?" Weskham stood by the closet doors and looked toward Regis.

"No reason to keep them," Clarus said. "But they could be used by someone else. Donated, perhaps?"

She would have appreciated the sentiment of aid, but just as with everything else, Regis struggled to let go of Aulea's clothes. He sat on the edge of his bed as he watched them, gripping the edge of the mattress. All he needed was a plausible reason to hold onto them. "What of Reina?"

"It will be fifteen years before Reina could possibly fit into her mother's clothes—though there's no guarantee she ever will—and even if she could, she will have her own wardrobe made to her tastes and style," Clarus said. "Every piece you keep, Regis, is not bringing you closer to her. It is merely holding you back."

He knew Clarus was right, but he still wasn't prepared to admit it.

"There is one that Her Highness may find particular interest in, some day." Weskham reached into the closet and drew out a white dress sealed inside a garment bag.

Aulea's wedding gown. It was the sort of thing little girls liked, wasn't it? Their mother's wedding dress? It was just as well Weskham intended to save it. Regis didn't think he could accept that one joining the bags of possessions that he would never see again. He also couldn't find his voice anymore, so he only nodded.

The wedding dress was returned to the closet and, one by one, he watched Aulea's other dresses disappear into bags. The white and black dress with the flowers that she liked to wear in the garden with a wide-brimmed hat vanished into a large black bag; next it swallowed the simple, yet elegant, gowns she had commissioned for sick days; then the loose satin robes she had favored over her sleepwear disappeared, never to be seen again. Among the constant flow of fabric and gems, Regis caught a flash of black chiffon.

"Wait—" That was the dress she had worn for his birthday the year before, made specially for that occasion. At the time it had struck him how beautiful she looked. Even today he could see her in it, elegant and smooth like a black waterfall. "Not that one."

Weskham paused, still holding the dress. It was Clarus he looked to for confirmation, however.

"Are you going to argue for every other garment?" Clarus asked.

"No. Only this one and the wedding dress. I swear it."

Clarus considered him a moment, then nodded. "Then it stays."

Regis sighed, watching the black gown return to the closet, tucked safely away. Perhaps it would never see daylight again. Perhaps it would never be worn again. At that moment, he didn't even care if it ever fit Reina or if she even showed interest in it. He merely wanted it safe.

The remainder of the night passed in a similar fashion. The four of them picked through everything Aulea had owned; most of it was designated to be discarded or otherwise donated. Often there were disagreements about what was worth keeping and, though Regis knew that each time Clarus was correct, it never made the next step easier.

Dawn found Regis and Clarus passed out on top of the bedspread. Weskham sat in one of the armchairs, which had been carried in from the sitting room to the bedroom, and Cor stood wedged against the fireplace trying to keep his eyes open.

They had accomplished a great deal. The servants who had come to carry away the bags of clothing and miscellaneous possessions had brought a tray of coffee, though it seemed likely Weskham was going to be the only one to enjoy it. One would think, after all those long council nights, that Regis and Clarus would have been better prepared to deal with low sleep. Then again, the night had been hardest on Regis and next on Clarus. Physically, they had done little more than sit up, but Weskham knew better than to think it wasn't work. Regis fought a war. Tonight he had won a battle that had long been in the making.

The results were a room that was now Regis'. Some keepsakes remained: in addition to the two dresses, most of Aulea's jewelry remained, along with—of course—personal letters and all the pictures their search had turned up. Her books had all been sent back to the library. Her cosmetics had been discarded, all but an unopened bottle of perfume. A few of her projects had remained—the needlepoint, cross stitch, and embroidery that she occupied hours with—and had been sent to be framed or otherwise preserved. The most difficult thing for Regis to give up had been the unfinished work.

Eventually, Weskham suspected it would be good to convince him to have those things he had kept—the dresses, the jewelry, and the perfume—stored elsewhere. Ostensibly, they were the sort of things worth passing on to the princess once she was old enough, but Weskham suspected that was only an excuse. Regis wasn't ready to let go of everything and that was only to be expected.

"Is this it, then? Is he ready to move on?"

Weskham looked up from his cup of coffee as Cor spoke. It was a peculiar question but, then again, Cor was a peculiar person. He had grown up too fast, or tried to. He knew his sword as if it was an extension of his own body, but he didn't know human nature from peanuts.

"It is one more step on his recovery from loss," Weskham said. His eyes drifted to the bed where Regis slept, still clothed in his suit from the day before. It was a small blessing he had fallen asleep at all. "But there is no moving on. Not like you're thinking. He'll carry her with him for the rest of his days."

"You're saying he'll never get better?"

"No." Weskham looked back at Cor. "That's not what I'm saying. As time passes, you'll see more and more of what you expect from him: your king and leader; the man who can move mountains for his people and hold back the dark. But we never lose sight of those who leave us. He'll remember her—in the little things and the big things—and he'll never have that again. He'll get better at understanding that, at accepting and living with it, but that doesn't mean it will ever be in the past."

Cor shifted, putting his back against the wall instead of his shoulder against the fireplace. "How do you know so much about people?"

Weskham smiled. Outside, the sun was rising above Insomnia. The city was waking up.

"That's my job."


	30. In Search of Words

The violin was still sitting on his coffee table beside the blood-stained note that Cor had pulled from Spero's typewriter. It wasn't because Regis couldn't bring himself to put them away. In the month they had sat there, he had grown much better at putting things aside: his room was his again, absent of all Aulea's possessions—even those that he had refused to throw away were packed up and stored for the years to come.

No, he left Spero's note and his violin because it wasn't time, yet. Something had been left unfinished and Regis couldn't pinpoint what it was. Some nights he sat in his study and stared at the note—Spero's last words—though he had already memorized it. The words sparked something in him, but he couldn't find the source.

 _I won't haunt you_ , Spero had written _...this is what I wanted._

They were the pieces to a puzzle that he hadn't yet sorted out. He left them there so he could remember; he _needed_ to remember. Neither of them would rest until he put the puzzle together.

The trouble was, he couldn't even quantify what it was about the note that bothered him. Was it because he wrote that he had always meant to kill himself, when Regis had believed he could be saved? Was it because Regis still blamed himself?

No. Neither of those fit.

 _This is what I wanted…_

Regis took solace in the one place that always held it. Thinking too hard about a problem rarely helped matters.

It was dinner time in the nursery. Regis could tell by the shouting.

" _Coo!_ " Yelled Noctis.

"I am _not_ giving you cookies for dinner. Eat your pasta."

"No! _COO!_ "

No? He hadn't said 'no' before, surely.

Regis poked his head into the kitchen to watch Noctis painstakingly pick up a piece of shell-shaped pasta between thumb and forefinger and then drop it off the side of his highchair. Crea stood by, looking exasperated. In the adjacent chair, Reina watched each piece of pasta as it fell, in between bites of her own dinner—which she made no complaints about.

"Any other new words I should know about?" Regis asked.

Crea looked up, surprise flashing momentarily across her face before she gave him a wry smile. "Oh, he's becoming very verbose. Soon you won't be able to get him to shut up."

"Hi-hi-hi!" Noctis waved his whole arm at Regis when he entered.

Regis beamed, stooping to put himself level with Noct. "Hello, Little Prince! Are you being good for Crea?"

"Can you say 'no', Noctis?" Crea folded her arms over her chest and looked down at the pair of them.

"No!" Noctis said.

Regis chuckled, straightening. He crossed to give Reina a kiss and a smile. "And you, my dear? Are you behaving yourself?"

"Oh, she's a saint," Crea said. "If you only have one trouble-maker on your hands, you'll be a lucky father."

He smiled. A part of him wanted to object that it would be ever so much fun to watch them get up to no good together, but that was only because he could make someone else deal with it. Something troubled him about Crea's response, however. She had asked Noctis to respond but not Reina, though they were thirteen months, by now.

"She still doesn't speak?"

Crea shook her head. "Not yet."

"I thought you expected it soon. Noctis has several words, now—is it not worrisome that she has none?" Regis smoothed one hand over Reina's hair. She ate her dinner, evidently unconcerned about her lack of words.

"I did, but it's hard to predict," Crea said, "It's unexpected that she would take this much longer, but I don't think you should worry, still. She clearly understands as much as Noctis does, and she's considerably more cooperative with it."

"But she _is_ quieter."

"Some people are." Crea gave him a crooked smile. "Maybe she just hasn't found anything worth talking about, yet."

Regis stooped, putting his hands on his knees and his eyes level with Reina. He stared into her face and Aulea's eyes looked back at him. Clarus and the others had joked that she would grow up just like Aulea, but quiet and cooperative were not adjectives that he would have described Aulea with. Whatever Reina was when she grew up—whoever she was—he loved her all the same.

"Doubtless you will do things in your own time, Little Princess. Though I hope you will discover something worth talking about, soon. Barely a year old and you already have your old man worried about you." Reina smiled, displaying all four teeth. Regis smiled back at her. "Perhaps you are less liberal with your words. Noctis will speak of anything, but you are still waiting to learn the words for what really matters."

Reina picked up a piece of pasta and held it out to him. Regis leaned forward to take it; she watched him all the while, as if to make certain he really _did_ eat the pasta that she was so generous to share. Behind him, Crea laughed.

"She's never done _that_ before."

"Well." Regis remained stooped, still looking at Reina. She giggled. "We have already established that she is _my_ little princess."

In spite of his smug words, he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. She shared things with him that no one else saw.

"Of course. You've got nothing to worry about, there," Crea said, "Reina—where's Dada?"

Reina pointed straight at Regis' nose. Regis grinned.

"Where's Reina?" Crea asked.

Reina pointed to herself.

"Where's Noctis?"

She turned and looked at Noctis, who dropped another piece of pasta on the floor.

"Just wait until he discovers he can feed you his dinner instead," Crea said.

Regis laughed, straightening. "You must think me a terrible parent."

"Of course I don't!" Crea moved to the kitchen table and retrieved a carton of blueberries. She deposited a small handful in front of Reina and optimistically gave Noctis a couple, as well. "Just because you don't fit the traditional mould doesn't mean you're a bad father. You love them and that—I would argue—is more important than anything else."

"I only hope it is sufficient." He watched Reina meticulously work her way through the fresh blueberries.

Crea touched his arm. He turned to find her looking up at him. "She will speak, Regis. In her own time."

And there was nothing else to do but wait.


	31. What He Wanted

"Bastien Kurick, you are charged with thirty-nine counts of manslaughter, seven-hundred ninety-three counts of negligence, and improper disposal of hazardous materials," Clarus said, "The Crown will pass judgement based on the evidence presented in your case. You are not required to speak, but if you have any further comments that have not yet been entered on record, you may make them now."

Chains were a suitable look for Kurick.

He no longer wore his custom-made three-piece suit. His hair was unkempt and a stubble grew on his chin—though it was difficult to note, as his chin rested on his chest. He knelt before Regis' throne on the landing in the middle of the stairs, a pair of crownguards flanking him.

Gone was the cocky narcissism from months before. Gone was the business owner who could do no wrong. Today he was a criminal. It was too late for any defense he might try to mount. Regis had already made his decision.

Regis lifted a hand and Clarus resumed his seat.

"Let the charges against this man be amended," Regis said, "Bastien Kurick is charged with _forty_ counts of manslaughter."

Kurick lifted his head to look up at Regis. He didn't speak and it was just as well; the guards standing on either side of him looked to be waiting for an excuse to put a boot in his ribs. Speaking out of turn before the crown would have been justification enough.

"Do you recall the name Spero Perdita, Mr Kurick?" Regis asked.

"No, Your Majesty." Kurick's voice had lost that soft, oily quality as well. Instead, it sounded hoarse and a bit gravelly.

As much as he had expected Kurick would have no knowledge of those he had caused the deaths of, it irked him to hear the words spoken.

"He disposed of hazardous waste on your orders. The exposure landed both him and his wife, Elaisse, in the hospital. Only Spero returned home." Regis gripped the armrests of his throne and glowered down at Kurick. "It was evidence given by him that sealed your fate, but that is not why I speak of him. Two months ago, Spero killed himself in his home"

Kurick's lips moved, but Regis couldn't hear the resulting words. He dropped his gaze shortly after, as if regretting his decision to respond at all.

One of the crownsguards beside him gave him a firm nudge in the ribs with a boot. "Speak clearly before the king."

"I said: that is unfortunate, Your Majesty, but I fail to see how it makes me guilty on forty counts," Kurick repeated still staring down at the tile beneath his knees.

"Your actions caused his death, as they did the death of thirty-nine others, though for different reasons. Your negligence led to the death of his wife, which led to his own death. I therefore charge you with his death alongside the others."

Kurick made no response this time. Perhaps he realized it didn't matter; the sentence would be the same, regardless—the number was for Regis' benefit, not his.

The court and council fell silent and, in the silence, Regis gave a curt nod to Clarus.

Clarus rose from his seat once more. "Bastien Kurick, have you anything to say on your behalf?"

"No, my lord."

Clarus resumed his seat and looked to Regis.

"Bastien Kurick, I hereby find you guilty of the aforementioned crimes. Your life belongs to the crown, henceforth." Regis rose from his throne to make the declaration. It was no surprise to anyone present; his council had known and Kurick had guessed well enough. Regis glanced at the crownsguards. "Take him away."

Kurick would spend the rest of his life rotting in a cell, unless he could be made to do something useful—which Regis doubted very much.

And that, at long last, was through.

 _Justice for your Elaisse, Spero,_ Regis thought as he watched the crownsguards haul Kurick to his feet and lead him down the steps. _And for you, as well._

* * *

Clarus wasn't the only one who followed Regis back to his study after the conclusion of Kurick's hearing. Weskham was waiting for them outside and Cor met them outside Regis' office. Perhaps they knew or guessed what was coming. More likely they were still concerned.

Two months the violin had sat on Regis' coffee table. He still wasn't sure what the last piece of the puzzle was. He had doled out justice, today, but it wasn't enough. He felt, somehow, that it wasn't the end of the story.

Regis sat down in one of the armchairs and leaned forward to pour himself a drink. Clarus glanced at Weskham as he did so, though none of them had moved to join him. It was clear enough what troubled Clarus. Since the day he had drank an entire bottle of scotch before nine in the morning, he had hardly touched the stuff. Not, leastways, until two months ago. Clarus, Gods bless him, was worried Regis would fall into the same hole.

But Clarus was wrong.

"He was an extraordinary man." Regis leaned back in his chair and motioned to his friends. It was unsettling enough that they had all come without being called just when he wanted them; he didn't need them hovering, as well.

One by one they took the invitation. Weskham and Clarus sat on opposite ends of the lounge and Cor took the armchair across from Regis. None of them said a word.

Regis glanced at the piece of paper that lay on the table beside Spero's violin. The blood that spattered it had turned brown with time and it was now creased from frequent handling. Just a few lines of typed words occupied the space, and Regis knew them all by heart.

"I know you all thought he was mad, but the madness never blotted out the brilliance." It had showed in everything Spero did. His writing was captivating; he was sharply observant, aware, in spite of his deteriorating mental state, of all that was in and around him; his manner of speaking was cleverness subtly disguised as brashness.

"He would make comments that, as an isolated event, might just have been overlooked as happenstance. But each one added together gave lie to any assumption that it was merely madness. He saw things other men do not, but he wasn't bound by duty or honor to not make them known. He knew _people_." Regis was still looking at the note. His full glass of scotch rested against the arm of his chair.

More than once, Regis had wondered if Spero didn't know Regis' mind better than Regis did, himself. All those months Spero had spent in the mental hospital convincing his doctor that he was making improvements and experiencing only expected symptoms of grief… had he been taking his medication at all, or had he stopped part way through? If it had made his hallucinations of Elaisse disappear, Regis could understand why he would have stopped. Still, no one had suspected a thing.

 _This is what I always meant to happen, and I'm sorry I let you believe it could be stopped._

"I truly did believe I could save him from his grief." Regis took his first drink from his scotch. It burned, but left a warm tingling in its wake. "It was foolish; I see that, now. I thought I could give him some meaning back, help him to find light in his life by placing expectations on him. But you cannot cure grief. You can offer a guiding light to those who are lost, but it can never replace the light inside."

 _This is what I wanted._

Regis' mind echoed in Spero's voice.

This _is what I wanted._

 _This is what_ I _wanted._

And the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

Regis sat forward and traded his glass of scotch for Spero's last note to him. Everything was there, written clearly, but cryptically—like everything else Spero had ever said to him.

 _This is what I wanted._

The words were important. So important that he had repeated them thrice within the space of a quarter page.

"I did everything I could to keep him holding on. I wished to read his book, to see him healthy, to hear him play the violin. All along, though, there was only one thing _he_ wanted. That was what mattered. That is what he has, now." Regis spoke to the page, his eyes flicking over the well-read note. The words streamed out as thoughts fit together in his head. The last piece. The reason why the violin had lain on his table for two months.

At long last, he could lay Spero's memory to rest.

He could almost hear the response, see the crooked little smile on Spero's face.

 _Finally_.

Regis looked up from the note. He folded it in half, creasing it once down the middle, and leaned forward to place it beside the violin.

"Wes," he said, "Would you please find a place to store these? Someday they will find use again. For now, let them be kept safe."


	32. Speechless

One year had passed in mourning of Aulea. Regis still thought of her first each morning when he woke to an empty bed. The room still felt empty without her, but he carried on. What else could he do?

Outside, everyone pulled him this way and that. His people expected a symbol, not a man—a king capable of upholding the Wall and protecting them from the empire. His councilors expected his judgement and guidance: his end-all be-all word at the end of the day. Cor wanted him to step up and take control of his duty and his life once more. Weskham wanted to see him happy and healthy again. Even Clarus wanted his best friend back.

 _But what do_ you _want?_ Spero whispered.

He stood on the balcony outside his rooms, watching the sun rise over Insomnia. His first answer was, of course, that he wanted Aulea back, but that was an impossibility. It had been for Spero, as well, but he had found a way to be together with Elaisse once more. Was that what Regis craved? To be reunited with her in the afterlife?

That answer, also, was immediate.

No. No, he did not want to leave this world behind: not even if it meant an end to all the heartache, not even if he hadn't been assured that the afterlife would be out of his reach. He wanted to stay.

 _Why?_ Spero asked. _Hang their expectations. What do you_ want _?_

He raked his brain for something obtainable, something he desired that was in front of him. His mind lighted, more or less, where it usually did.

Reina. Fifteen months old and she still didn't speak. Crea told him everything would be fine, that some children just took longer at some things, but he could see trouble behind her eyes, now. It was growing late. Everything else Reina had done at the same time as her twin: their teeth had arrived within weeks of each other every time; she had taken her first steps just days before Noctis had taken his; she smiled and he smiled; they had both learned their names while Regis was sick in bed; they pointed and clapped; they could identify objects and people. And yet, three months after Noctis had learned what sounds meant 'cookie', Reina had yet to speak a single word. Her brother, by now, knew several dozen and he applied them liberally throughout the day. He would point at a thing and have the name of it, then repeat the word back until he knew it by heart. Throughout it all, Reina watched—quiet, reserved, but, as far as anyone could tell, _happy_.

 _If there is one thing I wish for myself, it is to see them grow up whole and healthy._ Regis shut his eyes against the building light and cast his wish into the sky.

Already he had spent too many sleepless nights fretting over it. What if she never learned to speak? What if there was something wrong—something missing? What if she never grew up? He would have loved her, all the same, but no parent wished a half-life upon their children or themselves.

If only she would _speak_.

Regis sighed, turning his back on the city and returning to his rooms. Though Clarus had yet to arrive and it was still early, he had already dressed and broken fast with Weskham for company. Now, with some few minutes of spare time on his hands, he found himself drawn to the nursery. A little part of him was hoping that if he just found more time to speak to her she would learn. So far it had yielded no results.

In the nursery he found his children already fed and watched over by a pair of nurses as they went about their play. It seemed the hour was too early to catch Crea at work, as well. As much as he should have expected it, he was disappointed. Crea didn't scramble to her feet and curtsy whenever he entered.

Both nurses did so as soon as they spotted him. "Your Majesty!"

"Good morning—please, do not let me disturb you." Regis lifted a hand, indicating they should be at ease.

Noctis, standing in the middle of the room with a rubber frog in his hands, looked up when Regis spoke. "Hi Dada!"

Regis smiled. Noct had only just begun to string words together. From what Crea said, he gathered this was early for such progress. That only made him all the more thankful for it; he would never grow tired of hearing Noctis' new words, or of being greeted in such high spirits each morning.

"Good morning, Noctis." Regis lowered into a half-kneeling position and held out his arms. Noctis handed him the frog. "Too grown-up for hugs, already?"

Whatever response Noct made, it was not made up of any words Regis understood. He toddled off, leaving Regis was a rubber frog and no hug at all. Such was the life of a parent.

"And you, Reina?" Regis asked, shifting so he faced his daughter. She sat a few more feet away, legs askew and hands planted firmly on the mat in front of her, but she looked up at the sound of her name. "Come here, my darling."

Had she been any other child, he might have expected his request to be ignored. But for nearly as long as she had been alive, Reina had never failed to do as she was asked. Whether that was because she consciously made that decision or she just hadn't realized that she had a choice in the matter was anyone's guess. Regis liked to think it was the former, but in light of other events it did trouble him a little bit. A child's refusal to comply with instructions often signified that he was learning independence. So what of Reina?

In spite of his concerns, it was impossible not to smile when she pushed herself to her feet and hurried across to him, arms outstretched. He scooped her off her feet and pressed a scratchy kiss to her cheek.

"You shall never be too grown up for hugs, Little Princess. I refuse to allow it."

Reina giggled.

He sat down cross-legged with his daughter in his lap and reached for a board book from the nearby pile. Reina grabbed it as soon as it was in reach.

"Are you going to read this to me?" He let her lift the book from his hands. "Very well. I will listen. Go ahead."

Reina turned the book over twice before finding where it opened. She let it fall open, holding onto just one corner as he caught the rest of it. Somehow, she didn't seem bothered that it was upside down.

Inside, stiff pages displayed an illustrated scene of a grassy field and a lone chocobo. They had been drawn on with pink crayon.

"What is this?" Regis asked, pointing to the upside down chocobo.

Reina looked at the chocobo, then tilted her head back to look at him. He turned the book right side up.

"Well? Go on. I thought you were going to read it to me. Tell me what is happening."

She stared at him for a moment before looking back down at the book. Noctis, intrigued by their game, wandered back over to take his frog back.

"Coco," said Noctis, pointing to the chocobo.

"Chocobo; very good, Noct!" That wasn't a word Regis had heard from him before. To be fair, without context, he never would have guessed what it was supposed to mean, but that was learning.

Reina turned the page, evidently caring very little about the chocobo. In the next scene, the lone chocobo was joined by a jolly cactuar and the Goddess Shiva. Regis was beginning to think he really ought to have read the book for context—it was taxing his imagination to contrive a situation in which all three of those would occupy one space.

"What is this, Reina?" He pointed to the cactuar. Again she stared at it for a moment, then looked up at him.

" _Cac_ ," said Noctis.

"Cactuar—precisely, Noctis. You do have quite the vocabulary, these days."

"Yes, Your Majesty, I'm afraid there's some grave news: your son is actually a parrot." Crea strode into the nursery, dropping a bag in her usual chair by the back wall, and pausing to give Regis a smile of greeting. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"There are worse things he could grow up to be, I am sure," Regis said. At the moment he couldn't think of any, but it didn't lessen his surety.

"Kee!" Said Noctis, pointing to Crea, though he looked at Regis.

Crea shrugged. "Close enough."

Reina, still silent, turned another two pages in the book, changed her mind, and skimmed back to the beginning. Regis thought of something worse than a parrot.

"She still has not spoken a single word," he said.

Crea pursed her lips and shook her head. "I _will_ tell you, as soon as she does."

" _If_ she does," Regis said, and immediately regretted the words.

And if she didn't? What did it mean? Where did it lead? Was it connected to her simple unwavering obedience, or was he growing paranoid? What if she grew up not into a parrot, but a mindless automaton?

"She will," Crea said. "She's a smart little girl. She just needs some extra time."

Regis sighed. In all things related to his children, he trusted Crea; that was why she was in charge of them. He would just have to continue to trust.

"Your Majesty."

He turned to find Clarus standing in the doorway. How long had he been sitting in the nursery, by now?

"Clarus," he greeted, hoisting Reina out of his lap and setting her on her feet so that he could stand. He glanced at the nursery clock and found that he was not, as he feared, late; Clarus was early. The look on his face said it was bad news.

"Word from Accordo." Clarus' voice dropped and Regis had to step closer to hear him. "Our contacts imply, with their latest correspondence, that a continued flow of information is no longer mutually beneficial. There is concern that they will cease to cooperate with us."

"Is there any indication that they are receiving pressure from the empire?" Regis asked, matching Clarus' tone.

"Dada!" A little hand tugged at his pant leg.

Regis didn't turn.

"We have no confirmation one way or the other, but it seems likely," Clarus said.

"Dada…" Noctis said again, though less insistently, as if demurred.

"Not at the moment, Noct," Regis said. "We will need to move quickly. Until we have that information, our operatives in Accordo—"

Crea's hand landed on his arm and Regis stopped mid-sentence. She wasn't looking at him; she was looking at the floor behind him.

"That… wasn't Noctis."

He turned to find Reina standing behind him, right where he had set her. She was holding onto the front of her dress and looking up at him with doleful eyes and a protruding bottom lip. Noctis was on the other side of the room, absorbed in a toy that crinkled when squeezed.

Regis looked from Reina to Crea, then back again. He dropped to his knees in front of her, all concerns about Accordo gone from his mind.

"Reina, my dear… did you call me?" He held out his hands and she stared at him for a moment, characteristically silent.

Then: "Dada!" She lunged for his hands and landed in his arms.

Regis wrapped her up, holding her as tight as he dared. Sunshine filled him up. He wanted to hug her until they were both in the same spot at the same time and never let go again.

 _Thank the Gods…_

He shut his eyes and tears escaped. When was the last time he had been so overjoyed that he had cried?

"I told you." He didn't need to look to hear the smile in Crea's voice. "She was just waiting to learn the word for what was most important."

Perhaps it was just another fancy of Crea's, but he wanted to believe it. If the most important thing in Reina's life was him, then they were starting out this road with one thing in common, at least. He would believe it for as long as he was able.

It was difficult to say how long he knelt there hugging Reina—miraculously, she didn't object to the confinement—before Clarus drew his attention again.

"Sire, Accordo…"

Regis freed one hand to dry his face, then looked up at Clarus. Of course. Accordo. His people needed him; there would be a meeting of the council, some hasty decisions would have to be made regarding those contacts they had in Accordo, and a diplomatic response would have to be drafted. He would have to see if this relationship was salvageable, because allies in Accordo meant eyes in Niflheim.

And all of that meant he had to put his daughter down and turn his back on the first request she had ever made.

Regis looked down at Reina once more. She smiled.

As of yet, she had no idea. At fifteen months she had just told him that he was the most important thing she could think of—the first thing she wanted to talk about in her entire life. She didn't know that time and time again his duty would force him to turn his back on her wants and needs, to put her and her brother second to the kingdom, to miss milestone after milestone as she grew up.

 _What do_ you _want?_ Spero whispered.

He brushed his thumb over her sweet little cheek.

"Accordo can wait. My day is occupied."

* * *

A/N: That's it for this story, dear readers! I do, as I have said before, intend to continue it; I will post the next piece in a separate fic, though. Also, I haven't written it, yet (except for the first chapter...) so I can't exactly post it, yet. You can expect it sometime in the next few months, though! I just need to finish Remnants and get a proper start on it.

Also, I'm going to change this fic's title. So if "Of Endurance" shows up on your alert list... that's why.

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you all again when the sequel comes out.


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